Paradise Papers

The European Parliament is right to call out EU governments for their failure to agree the reforms needed to tackle large-scale tax avoidance, said Oxfam in reaction to a key vote on tax in the European Parliament.

Following the Paradise Papers revelations, the European Parliament decided today to establish a new special committee on tax fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, tax avoidance and aggressive tax planning. 

EU finance ministers have decided today to remove eight countries from the EU’s blacklist for tax havens, rushing to take countries off the blacklist without it being clear what they have actually committed to improve.

The European Commission has today opened a state aid probe into the tax affairs of furniture giant Ikea with the Netherlands. This new case shows Europe still has to put its own house in order when it comes to ending tax havens within the EU.

Today the European Parliament adopted the report by its Panama Papers inquiry committee and voted in favor of recommendations aimed at stopping corporate tax avoidance across the European Union. Oxfam welcomes the Parliament's call for EU member states to adopt the reforms needed to end corporate tax abuses.

The upcoming EU tax haven blacklist has to include at least 35 countries, including notorious tax havens such as Switzerland and Bermuda, in order to be effective, Oxfam finds in a new report published today. The analysis also shows that at least 4 EU countries would be blacklisted if the EU were to apply its own criteria to member states.

When global corporations and the super-rich use tax havens to avoid paying their fair share, it is the poorest countries and people who lose most. This briefing lists five actions governments can take to tackle tax avoidance and end the era of tax havens.