Governments Chasing Their Tails Over Tax Havens

Recent data emerging from the Bank of International Settlements ( BIS ) confirms

what most of us already suspected the tax evasion industry is very much alive and kicking despite efforts by the G 20 group of major countries to bring participating individuals and corporations to heel. Clearly, the age of austerity is making voters ultra sensitive about anyone, particularly the wealthy, not contributing their fair share and falling tax revenues are forcing governments to exploit every conceivable source of new receipts including assets held in offshore tax havens.

The problem is that increasing globalisation where people and businesses earn from a variety of different countries are making it increasingly difficult for tax authorities to keep track of what everyones got and where it is. Take, for instance, the case of British oil and construction workers on long term contracts overseas. They are certainly not going to remit all their lightly taxed earnings to dear old Blighty where they will always be under the microscope. Similarly, corporations doing business all around the world can effectively ensure that their profits end up pretty well where they will be taxed the least.

The end result is that in 2011 there was still a whopping $2.7 trillion deposited in offshore havens, the same figure as in 2007. Given inflation and the growth in global wealth in the intervening 4 years, some would argue that zero growth in the offshore figure is a result in itself. However, the lack of any reduction in absolute numbers will come as a disappointment to governments who have been busily negotiating treaties with the better known tax havens to ensure full disclosure where there is already evidence of tax evasion.

The problem, it would seem, is that the more respectable tax havens like Jersey and Luxembourg have been playing ball by signing disclosure treaties and have suffered from a corresponding loss of deposits. Jersey has in fact seen a dramatic 50% collapse in deposits equivalent to a massive $ 110 billion over the 4 year period. The beneficiaries are, not surprisingly, the more opaque havens like Panama and the British Virgin Islands. Cyprus has also seen an amazing 60 % leap in deposits over the same timespan.

by: Brendan Wilde

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