LatinNews Daily - 21 February 2024

*The European Council (EC) has announced that it has removed The Bahamas, Belize, and Turks & Caicos Islands from the list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes, along with Seychelles. With these updates, Latin America & Caribbean territories which remain on the list include Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Panama, Trinidad & Tobago, and the US Virgin Islands. In a statement the EC said that it regrets that “these jurisdictions are not yet cooperative on tax matters and invites them to improve their legal framework in order to resolve the identified issues”. The announcement is a particular blow for Panama’s President Laurentino Cortizo who in October 2023 hailed the decision by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to remove Panama from its ‘grey’ list of countries that are not doing enough to combat money laundering. Panama had been reinstated on the FATF grey list after “strategic deficiencies” were identified in June 2019 – the month before President Cortizo took office.