Switzerland and the UAE have ceased to be a "tax Paradise".

On 10 October 2019, the Council of the European Union agreed to remove the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Marshall Islands from the EU's list of non-cooperative jurisdictions (“black” list) for tax purposes. It also found Albania, Costa Rica, Mauritius, Serbia and Switzerland to be compliant with all commitments on tax cooperation. This is reported by the website of the Council of the European Union..

Currently, several dozen states or territories in the world are known as offshore zones. Offshore zones are understood as territories of a state providing a special regime of registration, licensing and taxation is provided for non-resident companies as long as the business activities of such companies are carried out outside the state. The residency test in each country is determined by domestic law.

In 2017, the European Union compiled a list of jurisdictions that do not cooperate with the EU on taxation, the so-called "black list" of offshore zones. Currently, if a jurisdiction does not meet the criteria of transparency of tax legislation and the criterion of efficiency of management and real economic activity under the condition of zero corporate tax rate, such jurisdiction falls into the “black“ list of offshore companies. However, the European Union has not developed any specific sanctions against countries on the “black list”. At the moment, the only more or less real restriction in connection with getting onto the black list is the denied access to the funds of the European Union.

Of interest is also the so-called “gray” list, which includes countries that do not fully comply with the EU requirements for tax transparency, but seek to correct deficiencies in certain parts of legal regulation.

According to the website of the Council of the EU, on October 10, 2019, the Council agreed to remove the UAE and the Marshall Islands from the list non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes. . These countries were moved from the “black” to the”gray” list. Furthermore, the Council confirmed that Switzerland, Serbia, Mauritius, Costa Rica and Albania have implemented all necessary reforms to comply with EU tax good governance principles ahead ofschedule. These countries will be removed from annex II of the conclusions.

Nine countries remain on the list of non-cooperative jurisdictions: American Samoa, Belize, Fiji, Guam, Oman, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, the US Virgin Islands and Vanuatu. In the future,
the Council intends to continue to regularly review and update both the black and the gray list.