The French Ministers have as promised, on 17th January, 2014,
signed off the arreté removing Jersey and Bermuda from the article
238 blacklist with effect from 1st January, 2014, which means that
there should be no retorsionary measures applied in the form of
disallowance of expenditure, deeming/requalification, or 75%
withholding on income and gains affected by the increased rate.
see
http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000028479396&fastPos=1&fastReqId=2141745257&categorieLien=id&oldAction=rechTexte
Congratulations to the Jersey negotiating term, and also to the
United Kingdom authorities for having stepped in forcefully ,
once Jersey had confirmed that matters were in order and
negotiations could start on that basis.
Note that the adjustment's to Jersey's internal mechanics of
information transfer were slight, and relatively insignificant,
which does show that the French blacklisting was based on system
and procedural incompatibilities, rather than actual
non-cooperation. The French Ministers were still egregiously
citing their own system as being the norm, which of course it has
yet to become. The French are under a warning from Brussels that
they have yet to implement the EU information exchange
directive....
A political solution to what remains a serious systemic mismatch
between the British/norman and the French concepts of tax
investigation. The French did not entirely escape censure on this,
although they timed it in such a manner as to get their oar in
before the more limited automatic information exchange, accepted by
Jersey, becomes the norm.
The good thing is that the more extreme wing of the French
Treasury, and Senator Marini, have been brought back into
order. The commission report refers, but it might be a trifle
optimistic to view a Swiss blacklisting as a political possibility,
despite Marini's clear castigation of the Helvetian
administration as uncooperative in that report, and Switzerland
being on the list of European States and Territories outside
the European Communities, therefore within article 238--0 A (1)
CGI