Tax News: 02/2023

The EU Council in an effort to continue to promote fair tax competition and address harmful tax practices has decided on 14 February 2023, to revise its list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes, by adding Russia, British Virgin Islands (BVI), Costa Rica and the Marshall Islands to the non-cooperative jurisdictions.

The EU list now consists of 16 jurisdictions as follows: American Samoa, Anguilla, Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Costa Rica,  Fiji, Guam, Marshal Islands, Palau, Panama, Russia, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, US Virgin Islands and Vanuatu.

From a Cyprus tax perspective, any dividend, interest, and royalty payments made to corporate taxpayers located in EU non-cooperative jurisdictions from a Cyprus tax resident payer are subject to withholding tax at the rates of 17%, 30% and 10%, respectively.