From Oxfam this morning: a new index of tax havens, about which they say:
Tax havens are the ultimate expression of the global corporate tax race to the bottom, and they can be found in every region of the world. For this paper, Oxfam has conducted new research that identifies the world's worst corporate tax havens.
These countries earned their place on Oxfam's ‘world's worst' list because they facilitate the most extreme forms of corporate tax avoidance, driving the race to the bottom in corporate taxation. To create the list, Oxfam researchers assessed countries against a set of criteria that measured the extent to which countries used three types of harmful tax policies: corporate tax rates, the tax incentives offered, and lack of cooperation with international efforts against tax avoidance.
I don't think this work challenges the Tax Justice Network Financial Secrecy Index but it's a useful addition and looks to be thoroughly researched, focussing on different issues including tax rates. As such, well worth looking at, as is the methodology, which is here.
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A further column might show a pattern, whose behind tax havens and protecting wealth of the 1%?
1 Bermuda British Overseas Territory
2 Cayman Islands British Overseas Territory
3 Netherlands
4 Switzerland
5 Singapore Commonwealth of Nations from 1965
6 Ireland
7 Luxembourg
8 Curac_ao Netherlands
9 Hong Kong British colony until 1997
10 Cyprus Commonwealth 1961
11 Bahamas Commonwealth 1973
12 Jersey Crown dependency
13 Barbados Commonwealth 1966
14 Mauritius Commonwealth 1968
15 British Virgin Islands British overseas territory
Indeed
Why miss out the fact that Ireland was British as well? Of course the Commonwealth doesn’t control what goes on in these places, but we could say that English speaking is by far the most dominant connection.
4 Full Members of the EU there – Ireland, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Cyprus. The UK and Malta are probably only just outside the top 15.
The EU cannot control its own members. Nor is the US on the list.
Nothing will change.
So, we leave the EU, which hopefully relegates The Netherlands and Luxembourg, then take measures to deal with the Swiss and with luck The City and our former Empire will rule the world. Who needs armed force etc when you have accountants? Rule Britannia!
Can someone explain to my how & why Holland/Netherlands is a tax haven? Many of the others I have seen before and mentioned as such but not never have I seen the Netherlands mentioned as one.
I wrote on the subject
Google, The Netherlands, A Tax Haven? And my name
Double Irish plus Dutch Sandwich.
And the fact that Ikea spent decades using Dutch-based structures to avoid paying tax.
And where are the Yanks? The longstanding misuse of Delaware corporations (and more recently similar structures in Nevada and Wyoming) and the sheer scale of operations would suggest the USA has more place on the list than the BVI.
That one has, I admit surprised me
TJN has always had it high on the list
Ireland’s tax regime has nothing at all to do with being British (it may have been colonised but it was never British). It has a great deal to do with preferential attraction and retention of American multinationals. However, they do not come to Ireland primarily for tax reasons. There are, after all, no-tax jurisdictions. Fair taxation is going to require coordinated action of a kind that looks less likely with Donald Trump in the White House.