France takes Bermuda off blacklist

Bermuda has been removed from France’s tax-haven blacklist.

On August 21, France added Bermuda, Jersey and the British Virgin Islands to its list of uncooperative jurisdictions.

Being on the blacklist meant that there world be a 75 per cent withholding tax on French source flows to Bermuda.

Minister of Finance Bob Richards announced today that “Jersey and Bermuda have been informed that they will be removed from the list for 2014, which means that the retaliation measures provided for by law will not be applied.”  

Minister Richards expressed gratitude to French officials for meeting to discuss how to get Bermuda off the list.

He said: we are “pleased that Bermuda has now been delisted”.

“I was impressed with the goodwill shown by French officials in working with Bermuda officials to resolve the matter before the end of the year. We were confident that any entry on France’s list would be veryshort-lived as Bermuda is globally recognised as complying with the highestinternational standards on tax transparency and compliance.

“I wish to thank His Excellency the Governor of Bermuda and British Officials including the Chancellor of the Exchequer in London who gave us support behind the scenes.”

Yesterday, Bermuda signed the US FATCA Intergovernmental Agreement to assist the US to fight against tax evasion.

In September 2013, Bermuda joined the OECD Multilateral Convention on Mutual Assistance in Tax Matters to facilitate cooperation between jurisdictions in the assessment and collection of taxes, in particular to combat tax avoidance and evasion. This means Bermuda is now among the leading international financial centers with transparency agreements as Bermuda now has over 60 tax transparency agreements when counting both bilateral and multilateral agreement partners.