Tax havens batten down as the hurricane looms

[ensho]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/29/tax-havens


Offshore financial centres from Jersey to the Cayman Islands are rallying to defend their privileges from a wave of international action against secrecy.


Home to 160 powerful US Congressmen, Rayburn House on Capitol Hill in Washington DC was the venue last Monday for a desperate resistance movement at its darkest hour.

In the basement of the sprawling whitewashed classical complex, 70 senior politicians and their advisers heard that prising open to increased scrutiny the secretive and corrupt world of tax havens - where trillions of dollars are stashed far from the reaches of the tax man - was akin to an evil Big Brother conspiracy that would smash civil liberties and hamper world economic growth.

It was organised by Dan Mitchell, co-founder of the right-wing Center for Freedom and Prosperity, and Richard Rahn, a senior fellow at influential libertarian Washington think-tank, the Cato Institute, a former board member of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority and a regular Washington Post columnist. They told the high-powered audience that moves to force so-called secrecy jurisdictions to share information with tax authorities were "hypocritical", "racist" and would destroy "defenceless" island economies.

Mitchell, a high priest of light tax, small state libertarianism, argued that current moves to encourage information exchange between secretive tax havens and the international community would see unscrupulous government officials sell highly sensitive information about the world's richest companies and individuals to drug cartels and warlords. Tax transparency would lead to kidnapping and murder.

For Mitchell, this is familar territory. In 2001, when the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, (OECD) the world's most powerful think-tank, was intent on stamping down on "harmful tax competition", his ferocious lobbying pulled off a stunning victory, persuading George W Bush to bring a halt to the OECD plan.

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And as countries sink trillions of dollars bailing out banks running up huge deficits in the process, Treasury ministers are mindful of the $11.5tn locked away in tax havens which could provide $250bn in taxable income.

As the prospect of increased supervision comes closer, the growing army of campaigning groups, churches and unions which have alighted on tax as the missing link in the poverty alleviation debate fear that proposals to increase information exchange will not go far enough. We will soon know whether Mitchell and his friends can keep the storm waters from lashing the world's tranquil financial havens.
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so they will rush to get their bucks out of the islands, etc., and into - where? where will they try to hide it next?

[HillbillyBob]

1. Perhaps Mitchell and Rahn would like an audit and cavity search?

Im sick of having to 'pay a fair share' of taxes when these greedy swine soak up at the trough then hide it in other countries..