Tax Justice Network unveils haven blacklist
Tax campaigners publish list of what it rates as world's most secretive tax havens in association with Christian Aid
The Tax Justice Network has compiled a league table of what it considers to
be the world’s most secretive tax havens, including the USA (Delaware),
Luxembourg and Switzerland.
The
Financial Secrecy Index ,evaluates the transparency of each haven and their
willingness to cooperate with other countries tax operations.
Christian Aid was also involved in the project, which saw researchers with a
concern about the harmful impacts of tax avoidance, tax competition and tax
havens draw up the index.
John Christensen, director of the Tax Justice Network’s international
secretariat, believed secrecy was a core feature of the global financial
system and jurisdictions compete with each other to provide it in order to
attract financial flows.
“But this comes at a price,” said Christensen. “Financial secrecy provides
cover for all manner of crimes and abusive practices: money laundering, tax
evasion and
avoidance, insider trading, terrorist financing, embezzlement, Ponzi
schemes, illicit financial flows, fraud and much more.”
“The Financial Secrecy Index shows just how entrenched the problem of
financial secrecy is. The index is an important tool that highlights the
desperate need for new rules in international finance that would make the
disclosure of information between different tax jurisdictions automatic.”
Further reading:
UK
tax havens urged to introduce VAT and corporate tax
