Swissinfo is as busy as ever today, reporting this morning that: Swiss banking secrecy faces renewed attack from members of the Council of Europe on Friday when they vote on a resolution demanding a clamp-down on tax havens. The parliamentary assembly of the 47-member Council is to discuss a resolution prepared by one of its
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Last week  the OECD’s tax boss Pascal Saint-Aman’s made comments in the International Tax Review criticising the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index. These are the published replies from Action Aid’s Martin Hearson and TJN director John Christensen.   Martin responded to Saint-Aman’s comments about transfer pricing – in which he suggests that the OECD’s approach to transfer pricing
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Tax Journal has just published a lengthy article on the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index which opens with the following sentence: The United Kingdom would ‘easily’ take Switzerland’s place at number one in the Financial Secrecy Index if the ‘British network of secrecy jurisdictions’ were considered. This is absolutely correct. The City of London is intimately connected
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Cayman News Service has reported: Former Cayman Islands Monetary Authority chairman, Tim Ridley, believes that Cayman’s public and private sectors ought to be doing much more to defend Cayman’s stance globally, with nothing less than the islands’ financial services industry at stake. Ridley says that the recent report by the Tax Justice Network reveals a continuous need
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Some secrecy jurisdictions have got very upset with the Tax Justice Network about its new Financial Secrecy Index. Jersey, Luxembourg, Cayman and the UK are amongst those getting stroppy, but then they ranked highly. The universal reaction on their part? We got it wrong. So now let’s note the reaction from a secrecy jurisdiction that saw its ranking
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The Cayman Islands official news service hasn’t taken kindly to Cayman being ranked at number 2 in the new Tax Justice Network Financial Secrecy Index. They said so almost as soon as the report came out but now they’ve pretty much lost it, so deep is their anger at being given credit for what they
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Jersey has, according to the Daily Telegraph, not taken kindly to the Tax Justice Network Financial Secrecy Index, in which it came seventh. As they report: The CEO of Jersey Finance has criticised the 2011 Financial Secrecy Index, in which Jersey ranks seventh, as ‘nonsensical’ and nothing more than ‘lobbying disguised as research’. Geoff Cook added: The report
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London features heavily in the Tax Justice Network’s new Financial Secrecy Index. Whilst the UK comes in at number 13 places for which the UK is wholly responsible also feature prominently on the Index. The overall scores for London and its satellite offices are: RANK Secrecy Jurisdiction FSI – Value Secrecy Score Global Scale Weight 2 Cayman Islands 1646.7 77
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The top slot in the 2011 Financial Secrecy Index goes to Switzerland – now considered the most abusive secrecy jurisdiction in the world as a result. There is good reason for that. As the Tax Justice Network says: Since the financial crisis emerged, Switzerland’s share of the global market in offshore financial services has increased, as a result of its
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