During the informal ECOFIN meeting that took place on April 22, 2016 the Finance Ministers of the European Union agreed to enter into a pilot project for the automatic exchange of information on ultimate beneficial owners as a follow-up to last weeks letter by the so-called G5 (The UK, Germany, Spain, France and Italy).

In a speech given by European Commissioner Dombrovskis at the informal ECOFIN press conference, the Commissioner stated a.o. the following:

“The European Commission welcomes the EU-28 agreement to enter into a pilot project for the automatic exchange of information on ultimate beneficial owners. This is the follow-up of the letter by the so-called G5 last week in Washington. Commission will now work to facilitate and assist in putting this agreement into practice.

We will also follow-up on the mandate to explore ways to introduce disincentives for those who give advise in tax evasion planning and elaborate tax evasion schemes.

The Commission welcomes the strong support for establishment of an EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions as well as the idea to define dissuasive countermeasures against such jurisdictions. We believe that we can get this listing system up and running very soon – and the Commission is ready to work on it. This is yet another way for Europe to show leadership and EU list will be the first step to ambitious global list.”

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