Guernsey removed from Italian tax blacklist 15 April 2015Guernsey Reporter: Stephen Durham
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The Italian Ministry of Finance has removed Guernsey from its revised tax blacklist.
Amendments within the 2015 Finance Act mean that the anti-tax haven deduction blacklist has been revised to exclude all countries that have an adequate exchange of information with Italy.
Sinéad Leddy, head of technical at Guernsey Finance, said: “This is welcome news for the practitioners within our finance industry as it should open up some interesting opportunities across the finance sector but particularly within the private wealth sector.”
“The only disappointment is that it has taken so long for Italy to overcome some outdated prejudices and recognise the high standards of tax information exchange applied in Guernsey.”
Guernsey was among the first set of jurisdictions placed on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ‘white list’ for exchange of information standards in 2009.
A Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) with Italy was signed in September 2012, at the same time as Guernsey’s tax regime was reviewed and given a clean bill of health by the EU.
Leddy continued: “Guernsey has been participating in the OECD’s Convention on Mutual Assistance in Tax Matters since August [of 2014] and in October Guernsey agreed to be among the first wave of jurisdictions to adopt the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard.
She concluded by adding that Guernsey Finance will be working in partnership with industry and government to ensure that progress on such matters is made “as quickly as possible”.
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