*The European Union (EU) has opted to keep Panama on its list of jurisdictions deemed “non-cooperative” in terms of compliance with international standards of tax transparency and fair taxation. The announcement is a blow for the government led by President José Raúl Mulino which has made it a priority to get Panama off the blacklist. It remains on the list despite the fact that in October 2023 – in what was hailed by the previous Laurentino Cortizo administration (2019-2024) as a major achievement – the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) removed Panama from its ‘grey’ list of countries with strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) frameworks. Established in December 2017, the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes has been updated twice a year since 2020, with the next revision of the list scheduled for October 2025.
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