It lacks the palm-fringed sandy beaches of the Cayman Islands. Or the craggy Alpine peaks of Liechtenstein. But should the second smallest US state, Delaware, go on a blacklist of globally notorious tax havens?
A wedge-shaped chunk of land 96 miles long sitting halfway between Washington and New York, the state of Delaware is home to 870,000 people, 0.3% of the US population. But more than half of the nation's publicly traded companies are incorporated here, including 60% of the Fortune 500 firms. One anonymous office block serves as the registered address of more than 200,000 corporations.
Delaware's status as a corporate honeypot has attracted the unwelcome attention of Luxembourg's prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, who last week declared that if his country was to be picked upon as an alleged tax haven, then Delaware should get the same treatment.
The G20 has "no credibility", said Juncker, if Delaware and several other tax-friendly US states are allowed to pass under the radar: "If there must be a blacklist, then America should have its place on it."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/10/tax-havens-blacklist-us-delaware