Jersey - a party to massive taxation fraud
Marty Sullivan at TaxAnalysts is one of the best tax thinkers in the world. He’s doing a new project on offshore.
His latest report is on Jersey. His conclusion is stark:
At the end of 2006, there were $491.6 billion of assets in the Jersey financial sector beneficially owned by non-Jersey individuals who were likely to be illegally avoiding tax on those assets in their home jurisdictions. Rapid growth of bank deposits and mutual funds shares in the first half of 2007 easily pushes the total above $500 billion.
Now let’s suppose that the rate of return on this sum is 7%. And that the tax rate should be at least 30%. Jersey costs the world over $10 billion a year in evaded tax.
By itself that’s 20% of the sum needed to pay for achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
What is clear is this: the economy of Jersey is built on the basis of fraud, because that’s what tax evasion is. And the cost is to the poor people of the world.
I hope this preys on the conscience of Terry Le Sueur and his colleagues in the Jersey government.
“At the end of 2006, there were $491.6 billion of assets in the Jersey financial sector beneficially owned by non-Jersey individuals who were likely to be illegally avoiding tax on those assets in their home jurisdictions. Rapid growth of bank deposits and mutual funds shares in the first half of 2007 easily pushes the total above $500 billion.”
What an ill informed assumption. Tax evasion is fraud and as such financial institutions treat it as such. If he is to make such broad brush assumptions he should do some better research, if not get involved with the IMF visits in 2008/9 they are visiting for this particular reason. I can tell him for a fact that if there is any suspected tax evasion, which usually arises from being able to supply adequate rationale and planning the beneficial owner will be reported to the Financial Intelligence unit which would end up with the home tax authority. Some 56% of all suspicious activity reports filed in 2007 in Guernsey relate to tax concerns. Don’t blame the offshore jurisdictions for the home tax authorities’ inadequate tax legislation.
HJM
No one believes you.
If we did we’d have to disbelieve that 60,000 people have just confessed in the UK alone to using your territories for tax evasion.
But we do believe they have confessed.
And the only obvious conclusion is that either a) you’re not telling the truth or b) you’re absolutely appalling at suspecting tax evasion.
I’ll believe the latter if you like. But either way, your argument rings very, very hollow.
And any rational observer will see that your comment is an act in self delusion.
Richard
HJM
Can you give a break down of those SAR figures by the way - I can’t find them and curiously neither dould the National Audit Office. Why is that, I wonder?
Richard