An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter years of ef­fort, Trinidad and To­ba­go has been of­fi­cial­ly re­moved from the Eu­ro­pean Union’s list of non-co­op­er­a­tive ju­ris­dic­tions for tax pur­pos­es, fol­low­ing a de­ci­sion by the EU’s Eco­nom­ic and Fi­nan­cial Af­fairs Coun­cil on Tues­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day wel­comed the de­vel­op­ment, de­clar­ing that the coun­try “is no longer black­list­ed.”
“Our coun­try has of­fi­cial­ly been re­moved from the Eu­ro­pean Union’s list of non-co­op­er­a­tive ju­ris­dic­tions for tax pur­pos­es – a des­ig­na­tion ap­plied to coun­tries that fail to meet in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards for tax trans­paren­cy. This is a ma­jor step for­ward,” she said.
Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­gued that the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion did not se­cure com­pli­ance and re­moval, and main­tained that her Gov­ern­ment act­ed de­ci­sive­ly af­ter as­sum­ing of­fice.
“Through leg­isla­tive re­form, sus­tained in­ter­na­tion­al en­gage­ment, and stronger in­sti­tu­tions, we re­stored cred­i­bil­i­ty and re­built trust. Black­list­ing con­strained in­vest­ment, lim­it­ed op­por­tu­ni­ty, and weak­ened con­fi­dence in our fi­nan­cial sys­tem. In less than a year, we strength­ened our laws, en­hanced trans­paren­cy, and put Trinidad and To­ba­go back on the right track.”
She added that the re­moval from the list sig­nals clear­ly to the world that this coun­try has met its com­mit­ments and re­claimed its stand­ing on the glob­al stage.

“In­vestor in­ter­est is ris­ing. Con­fi­dence is re­turn­ing. Mo­men­tum is build­ing. T&T is open for busi­ness, com­pli­ant, and ready for sus­tain­able growth.”

The EU tax list­ing process forms part of glob­al ef­forts to com­bat tax eva­sion and avoid­ance risks, strength­en trans­paren­cy, and pro­mote fair tax­a­tion. Re­moval sig­nals that a ju­ris­dic­tion has met in­ter­na­tion­al­ly agreed stan­dards on tax good gov­er­nance.

EU Am­bas­sador Cé­cile Tassin al­so wel­comed the de­vel­op­ment, stat­ing: “The progress made by T&T on the path to­wards meet­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al­ly agreed stan­dards on tax good gov­er­nance is im­pres­sive. These ef­forts should be com­mend­ed. They are a pos­i­tive sign for the con­tin­ued strength­en­ing of our part­ner­ship.”

Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo al­so ad­dressed the de­ci­sion yes­ter­day, de­scrib­ing it as the re­sult of sus­tained en­gage­ment with Eu­ro­pean au­thor­i­ties.
“This mile­stone re­flects my Gov­ern­ment’s sus­tained com­mit­ment to trans­paren­cy, fair­ness, and ad­her­ence to in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­cept­ed stan­dards.”
He said, “This achieve­ment un­der­scores our ded­i­ca­tion to im­ple­ment­ing ro­bust glob­al tax stan­dards and strength­ens con­fi­dence in our eco­nom­ic and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works. We ex­press our ap­pre­ci­a­tion to our part­ners in the Eu­ro­pean Union for rec­og­niz­ing the re­forms we have un­der­tak­en, and we look for­ward to deep­en­ing our col­lab­o­ra­tion as we con­tin­ue build­ing a mod­ern, com­pet­i­tive, and glob­al­ly in­te­grat­ed econ­o­my.”

A key el­e­ment of the re­form pro­gramme was the re­place­ment of the for­mer Free Trade Zone regime, which had been deemed harm­ful, with a Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zone frame­work aligned with in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.

Be­tween 2024 and 2025, T&T strength­ened its tax trans­paren­cy ar­chi­tec­ture. In No­vem­ber 2024, the coun­try signed the OECD Mul­ti­lat­er­al Con­ven­tion on Mu­tu­al Ad­min­is­tra­tive As­sis­tance in Tax Mat­ters, sig­nif­i­cant­ly ex­pand­ing its ex­change of in­for­ma­tion net­work.

In Ju­ly 2025, the Glob­al Fo­rum on Trans­paren­cy and Ex­change of In­for­ma­tion for Tax Pur­pos­es award­ed T&T a “Large­ly Com­pli­ant” rat­ing on ex­change of in­for­ma­tion on re­quest. In De­cem­ber 2025, the Glob­al Fo­rum con­firmed that lo­cal laws met stan­dards for the au­to­mat­ic ex­change of fi­nan­cial ac­count in­for­ma­tion.

The coun­try al­so ad­dressed the Base Ero­sion and Prof­it Shift­ing (BEPS) In­clu­sive Frame­work’s rec­om­men­da­tions on Coun­try-by-Coun­try Re­port­ing to curb prof­it shift­ing by multi­na­tion­al en­ter­pris­es.

Im­bert: Ground­work laid be­fore the elec­tion

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said that the sub­stan­tive work un­der­pin­ning delist­ing was ex­e­cut­ed un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion pri­or to the April 28, 2025, gen­er­al elec­tion.

“The facts are straight­for­ward: the work that put this coun­try on the path to get­ting off the Eu­ro­pean Union’s non-co­op­er­a­tive tax ju­ris­dic­tions list was done un­der the PNM gov­ern­ment be­fore the 28 April 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion,” he said.

Im­bert out­lined what he de­scribed as de­ci­sive steps, in­clud­ing the Glob­al Fo­rum’s Sec­ond Round Phase Two on­site ex­am­i­na­tion from Oc­to­ber 21–25, 2024, which as­sessed the ef­fec­tive­ness of the coun­try’s tax in­for­ma­tion ex­change frame­work.

“That on­site ex­am­i­na­tion was not a ‘pa­per ex­er­cise’,” he said, not­ing that au­thor­i­ties were re­quired to demon­strate au­dit plans, com­pli­ance im­prove­ment strate­gies, en­force­ment sta­tis­tics, and prac­ti­cal out­comes.

He point­ed to the sign­ing of the MAAC on No­vem­ber 7, 2024, which ex­pand­ed T&T’s treaty net­work from rough­ly 15 part­ners to 148, and a No­vem­ber 8, 2024, meet­ing in Brus­sels with the Di­rec­torate-Gen­er­al for Tax­a­tion and Cus­toms Union to press the case for re­moval.

Im­bert main­tained that many of the re­ports pub­lished re­cent­ly re­flect im­ple­men­ta­tion work car­ried out one to two years ear­li­er and ar­gued that the core ac­tions that made delist­ing pos­si­ble pre­dat­ed the 2025 elec­tion.