The Government of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) welcomes the decision of the delisting of the Macao SAR from the list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions by the EU and reiterates our continued effort to work together with the international community on fighting against cross-border tax evasion as well as actively improving the work in the scope of tax transparency and fair taxation.
The Macao SAR was listed as a non-cooperative tax jurisdiction by the EU on December 5 last year. The Government of the Macao SAR believes that the decision was unilateral, one-sided and did not reflect the actual situation of Macao.
With the support of the Central Government, the Macao SAR has been actively in contact with the EU to express the position and describe the work progress and expected time-line of the extension of the “Multilateral Convention on Mutual Assistance and Administration in Tax Matters” to the Macao SAR, which ultimately leads to a proper solution of the concerned issue.
At present, the Central Government has already authorized the Government of the Macao SAR to sign the “Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement”. The procedures to extend the “Multilateral Convention on Mutual Assistance and Administration in Tax Matters” to the Macao SAR are in the final stage and a government declaration of the extension of the MAC to the Macao SAR will be made soon. By then, the Macao SAR will be able to exchange financial account information with other tax jurisdictions including all EU member states. Simultaneously, the legal regime of offshore business sector will be improved to further enhance the administrative work of taxation.
The Government of the Macao SAR will continue to maintain close contact and to cooperate with the OECD and other international organizations including the EU in order that they be informed of and updated on a regular basis with the latest work progress concerning taxation.