Under pressure to reform

‘There are currently enormous pressures on international finance centres or ‘tax havens’ within the European Union to reform their tax regimes so that there is no discrimination between resident and non-resident finance and insurance companies. The EU State Aid Rules and the EU Code of Conduct of Business Taxation demand that EU tax systems treat all companies the same, whether they are offshore or onshore, whether they are owned by residents or non residents, whatever sector of the economy they are trading in. Last week, the government of Gibraltar announced the reform of its company taxation laws. The Honourable P R Caruana QC , Chief Minister of Gibraltar, in his statement to the House of Assembly, made it clear that the reforms were forced on the government by factors outside of its control. The following text was extracted from the Chief Minister’s speech.