Tax News.com has an amazing story. It says:
The positive part played by the Isle of Man in the global war against financial crime has been highlighted by a key official from one of the US Treasury’s main anti-money laundering agencies.
William F. Baity - Deputy Director of FinCen, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network - spoke of the Island’s involvement with his and other agencies when he delivered the Chief Minister’s International Lecture at the Mount Murray Hotel.
Try telling that to Senator Carl Levin. The New York Times report on his investigation into tax havens in August 2006 said:
So many super-rich Americans evade taxes using offshore accounts that law enforcement cannot control the growing misconduct, according to a Senate report that provides the most detailed look ever at high-level tax schemes.
That investigation concentrated entirely on the Isle of Man. One of these stories has to be right and the other wrong. I can tell you which my money is on.
There is good reason for my doubting Mr Baity. First he was speaking to a dinner in Douglas, Isle of Man. Second,on the issue of the Island’s reputation, he advised a move away from the label ‘offshore’, which had connotations that could not be overcome, he said, to something like ‘independent financial centre’. He added:
Perception is reality and you will struggle as long as people talk about offshore
He is right in part. Some of us do struggle with people talking about offshore. The fact is that the Isle of Man is a tax haven. Any other description is wrong.
As for his suggestion that:
the Isle of Man use its maturity and experience in financial regulation to help less developed jurisdictions around the world
I have an obvious response. The less developed jurisdictions of the world are called its developing countries. We know that places like the Isle of Man create poverty in those countries. Worse, we know that the offshore activities that are undertaken there to contribute to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children a year by denying them essential resources that they need.
The Isle of Man can help the less developed jurisdictions of the world. It can stop being a tax haven. Nothing else will do.
5 Comments
Have the Isle of Man invaded Africa then? For once you are right, the 2006 Levin reported analysed 6 sensational cases involving the Isle of Man although the truth is such cases are in a minority. Most people who have money in tax havens are tax compliant.
Prove it
Richard
No you prove it. You are so full of it, you prove your absurd allegations. It is perfectly obvious that the cases you shout from the rooftops about are a few rotten apples in the barrel, yet you would have us believe the whole barrel is rotten! By all means let’s root out the rotten apples but there is no need to throw away all the apples and trash the barrel too.
You look at the Isle of Man Government tax invoice that has just landed on my doormat, and then tell me again that the Isle of Man is a tax haven. You look at how much tax we pay for flights and fuel. What a joke!
Isla
Not a joke at all
Tax havens are not tax havens for those who live there, only for those who live elsewhere
You pay the price
Richard
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