Jersey Off Levin's 'Black List'

by Robert Lee, Tax-News.com, London

20 July 2011

The Jersey government has welcomed the revelation that Jersey has been removed from a list of countries US Senator Carl Levin proposes to penalize for acting as so called 'tax havens', in the latest version of the 'Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act'.

Levin's proposals would impose punitive tax measures on transactions associated with a list of 'Secrecy Jurisdictions', on which, until recently, all of the Crown Dependencies were present.

Assistant Chief Minister, Senator Freddie Cohen said:

"Jersey welcomes the announcement this week of the removal of the list of Secrecy Jurisdictions from the US ‘Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act’ that has been re-tabled by Senator Levin."

“Jersey has made strong representations to the US Treasury and Senate officials that Jersey's inclusion in the list of jurisdictions in the previous version of the Act was subjective and took no account of the island’s tax information exchange agreement with the US and our good record of responding to requests for tax information, for which we have been congratulated by the US tax authorities."

Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf added:

“We are delighted therefore to see that we have been listened to, along with other jurisdictions that were also on the list who have made similar representations to Washington, and that there is now greater understanding of our position as an open and transparent regime."

“We have regular meetings and good contacts in Washington, which have helped to develop recognition of Jersey as a responsible and transparent jurisdiction.”

Fellow Channel Islands jurisdiction Guernsey has also been removed from Levin's little list, it was announced last week.

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