The removal of Hong Kong from the European Union’s blacklist

On 14 October 2015, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government announced that the European Commission (“EC”) updated its webpage on 12 October 2015 on the listing of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions amongst the European Union (“EU”) Member States. After the HKSAR Government’s liaison and clarification with relevant authorities, the technical error of presenting Hong Kong on the Spanish blacklist in June 2015 was rectified, and Hong Kong has been removed from the list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions.

The Comprehensive Agreement for the Avoidance of Double Taxation (‘CDTA”) between Spain and Hong Kong was signed in 2011, Spain has cleared Hong Kong from its national list since 1 April 2013. However, EC failed to take this into account and wrongly classified Hong Kong as a non-cooperative tax jurisdiction listed by 10 EU Member States in June 2015.

According to the EC’s updated webpage, Spain no longer includes Hong Kong on its national list and Estonia no longer presents a national list. So, the number of EU Member States that still include Hong Kong in their national lists has been reduced from ten to eight, resulting in the removal of Hong Kong from the EU’s blacklist.

The above information was extracted from the press release of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government. For more information, please visit the website: http://www.fstb.gov.hk/tb/en/docs/pr_20151014_e.pdf.