European Union Adds Bahamas, Saint Kitts, Virgin Islands to Tax Haven Blacklist

The European Union, or EU, added the Bahamas, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Saint Kitts and Nevis to the bloc's tax haven list and placed Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda to the so-called grey list of jurisdictions that don't adhere to anti-tax avoidance standards but promised to make change their ways.

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Bahamas Finance Minister, Kevin Peter Turnquest, who also serves as the country's Deputy Prime Minister said in a statement that “Throughout this process, The Bahamas has consistently been engaged with... the EU listing criteria – including as late as last week.  Therefore, this latest move is particularly surprising to us.”

The Bahamas government said it is “disappointed” the EU including the country in the blacklist.

Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley previously told reporters that the EU had created a unilateral “blacklist” and countries in the region were being “threatened” because of these decisions.

Following ten months of investigations last December, the EU released the blacklist of 17 countries or overseas colonies; it deemed as being tax havens.

However, some critics, far from hailing the list as an accurate, comprehensive picture of those countries failing to crack down on offshore tax avoidance schemes, branded it a “whitewash.”

Sven Giegold, a member of the European Parliament and economics spokesperson for the Green Group, said the list is "politically-biased as relevant financial centers like the United States of America are missing.” He noted that the new list “undermines the EU's credibility that member states were only able to agree on a whitewashed blacklist of tax havens.”