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02 Jun 2009
The government is being urged by MPS to crack down on offshore tax havens and corruption to ensure poor countries gain the maximum benefit from their own resources.
The plea comes from the House of Commons committee on international development and is in its latest report warning that the third world must not be see their aid programmes reduced as a result of mistakes made causing the economic crisis.
The report said developing countries loose billions of dollars a year to tax evasion by international companies as they seek to raise revenue.
It said havens facilitate the process by providing companies with anonymity through bank secrecy and failing to co-operate on tax matters with authorities from the country in which the funds originated. Estimates of revenue losses range from $120bn to $160 bn.
The committee chairman, Lib Dem MP Malcolm Brice, said British overseas territories had dragged their feet for years despite signing up to international standards.
He said the UK government 'has a responsibility to make amends for past failures to act' by taking steps as a matter of urgency to ensure that they cease to be tax havens.
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Visitor comments Add your comment
Pot and Kettles
Need to take the plank out of their own eye first before removing a speck from someone elses
Posted by: Ivor Legit-claim, 02 Jun 2009 | 00:00
Q. Where to start?
A. Westminster
Posted by: Paul Rice, 02 Jun 2009 | 00:00
Protectionism
According to a recent Economist article, some $2bn of former Nigerian dictator Abacha's loot was laundered through 23 London banks.
An Australian university professor talking on the BBC, said that after trying to set up companies in international tax shelters, the hardest ones to do it in were the offshore ones - apparently their due diligence was more diligent than London's or New York's.
Let's be honest, the UK government isn't concerned about the morality of otherwise of offshare financial centres - it just want more of the action for its own corrupt capital.
Posted by: cireferee, 03 Jun 2009 | 00:00
Can no one do the most basic research?
If Brice is incapable of understanding the difference between evasion and avoidance he should make way for some one who does.We are bored with the repetition of these tired mischaracterisations and there is danger to the UK in them.An MP should be capable of doing some basic factual research .If he had he would know that of the offshore financial centres the Overseas Territories are the leaders in transparency on tax matters and all crimes and the Cayman Islands in particular is a bastion of propriety and financial security. The Overseas Territories are not tax havens .Does he understand nothing of the OECD double standard .Perhaps it is too much for him but in whose interests is it that he so readily swallow the OECD line . If members of the House cannnot protect the important funding arrangements between the Cayman islands and the City City who exactly can? The lack of tecnical understanding displayed here is disturbing .
Posted by: Anthony Travers OBE, 07 Jun 2009 | 00:00