Jersey minister confident in French blacklist removal

A senior Jersey minister is confident the island will be removed from France's tax blacklist.

The island was listed as an "uncooperative jurisdictions" in August because of outstanding tax information requests from French authorities.

Sir Philip Bailhache, Minister for External Relations, said legislative and process changes had been made.

He said he was confident these would convince the French government to take the island off the list.

'No undue obstacles'

Sir Philip said: "I am confident that we will demonstrate to French ministers that the island has responded, and is responding, to the blacklisting by exchanging tax information more effectively.

"There have been certain requests for information made by the French under the terms of our TIEA [Tax Information Exchange Agreement] that remain outstanding.

"This is principally because those cases have been appealed and will need to be resolved in the Jersey courts.

"We are taking steps to ensure there are no undue obstacles to meeting our international obligations in the field of tax information exchange in the future."

A Jersey States spokesman said senior officials from France's Ministry of Finance indicated Jersey would be removed from the list once it was satisfied Jersey's tax information exchange was effective when responding to requests and the outstanding issues were resolved.

He said Jersey officials were told at a meeting in Paris on Thursday that it was not France's intention to keep the island on the list permanently.

The spokesman said Jersey had signed 32 TIEAs, of which 27 were in force, and almost all of the 172 requests for information had been dealt with.