The results of the European Union’s tax blacklist review have been just released. It is
pleasing to note that the EU has accepted that Samoa is making good progress towards
delisting from the blacklist. Of the two criteria that Samoa was found to be deficient, we
have now fully complied with one of them.
Way forward
Samoa is a responsible participant in the international tax arena; hence our commitment to
work collaboratively with the EU (and other international bodies) to ensure delisting and
finding the most appropriate pathways for Samoa to enable compliance with the
outstanding EU criteria. Owing to the complexity of the issues involved, this work is
anticipated to take some time, however we expect to have Samoa reviewed for delisting at
the EU’s next review in October 2021.
Is the EU tax blacklist working?
No doubt there are widespread concerns that the EU blacklist is not fair and is biased
against smaller countries. All but one of the twelve blacklisted countries has a population of
less than 1 million.
A comprehensive analysis recently done by Tax Justice Network (TJN) in its “State of Tax
Justice 2020” has revealed that all twelve countries blacklisted by the EU cause less than 2
percent of global tax losses. Hence Samoa’s contribution to global tax losses is a mere
fraction of a percent. EU member states themselves account for 36% of global tax
avoidance yet are never at any serious risk of being blacklisted.
Samoa is committed to good tax practices and joins a growing concern worldwide about
problems with the EU blacklisting criteria and process. The EU needs to ensure a “level
playing field” with all countries they are in partnership with in terms of equitably set tax
governance norms.