From the London Review of Books:
There was an awfully genteel protest organised by the Tax Justice Network in Jersey earlier this year. The TJN had joined up with a group of Jersey campaigners who would like the island to wean itself off its dependence on the more creative aspects of modern finance.
Fittingly, perhaps, the protest was polite: a public meeting on the Thursday evening, to be followed by a ‘guided tour’ of St Helier the following morning which would stop at all the major international banks that have set up shop there. The local police and media were very concerned about the promenade protest – financial workers had reportedly been warned ‘not to dress like bankers’ – but the walking tour gave little cause for alarm. The Jersey police were bemused to see the hooligans waiting for the light to turn green before crossing the road.
What would you expect? We promote law abidance!
But the article also gets to the heart of the issue.
Richard Murphy Jersey
The Jersey Evening Post reports that Jersey is considering extraditing an accountant to Australia where he is charged with fraud, conspiracy to defraud and money laundering.
The argument for not extraditing him is:
that sending the 56-year-old to Australia would send shock-waves through the finance industry
The argument for doing so is that:
if the authorities choose not to extradite the accountant to face charges of fraud and money laundering, the Island would look like a ‘safe haven for tax evaders’.
Blow the jurisprudence. Let’s deal with the PR shall we?
But I admit to a slight chuckle at the insertion of the words ‘look like’. As if.
Richard Murphy Jersey
From the Jersey Evening Post:
Jersey has plans to move to automatic exchange of tax information by 2011.
Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf has revealed that Jersey is already committed to the introduction of automatic information exchange mechanisms by January 2011.
Excellent.
Pity it’s taken so long and that so much effort had to be expended, but we’ve won.
Now it’s on to extending the directive and to shattering corporate and trust secrecy in these places.
Richard Murphy EU STD, Jersey
FT.com / Companies / Retail & Consumer - Woolworths turns into click n’ mix .
No mention of tax avoiding UK VAT, which is the basis for the relaunch from the Channel Islands in here.
So I thought I’d give it a quick mention to remedy the omission.
Richard Murphy Jersey, VAT
From the Jersey Evening Post:
UP to 180 jobs in Jersey are to go at the Lloyds banking group – just under a third of the 600 the group employs in the Island.
Of course the Lloyds / HBOS merger is blamed – but it’s not the case that one third of all employees are going in the combined group so that is a smokescreen.
The reality is Jersey is sinking.
It needs plan B.
Has it got it?
Richard Murphy Banking, Jersey
I read this comment from the Channel Islands this morning and couldn’t help but think of this:
Keep whistling guys. It will help.
Richard Murphy Jersey
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