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