Transparency International, India, issued this press release today. I think it worth reproducing in full:
Transparency International, India is concerned over the attitude of the Indian Government in seeking information from the German Government about millions of dollars of un-accounted-for money, belonging to the people of India, lying in Liechtenstein, a small country near Germany.
The Indian […]
Forbes has reported that:
A federal judge in Southern Florida today unsealed an indictment charging two foreign bankers, one a former private banker for UBS AG, with defrauding the U.S. by helping billionaire Orange County, Calf., real estate developer Igor M. Olenicoff evade U.S. taxes on $200 million hidden in Swiss and Liechtenstein bank accounts.
The charge […]
Jérôme Turquey has a fascinating blog on a German television documentary where a reporter asked a number of banks if they would help move illicit funds in Liechtenstein to a Luxembourg bank. As he notes:
The adviser of the first bank praised the high standards of safety of the country which allowed anonymous placements with numbered […]
Foundations have been at the core of the abuse that has taken place in Liechtenstein. And just as they have become the pariah instrument of the tax haven world it’s almost comical to note Jersey is planning new legislation to make them available in St Helier. Indeed, Jersey Finance, the state sponsored promoter of all […]
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales Tax Faculty has said of the payment for tax information from an informant in Lichtenstein:
The current incident raises a whole host of questions, not least as to whether the ends which appear to have been achieved can justify the means employed.
The Financial Times in an editorial […]
John Christensen and David Spencer of the Tax Justice Network have set out their arguments on how to tackle tax haven abuse in the FT today. I can do little better than recommend the whole article.
The key though is this:
It is time for radical approaches to make international finance more transparent. The focus must shift […]
The Independent ran a front page story on the cost of tax havens to Europe. It’s not 100% accurate but the location of the story in the paper gives some indication of how they view this.
The Guardian covered the fact that both the Treasury building and the Home Office are now owned through offshore structures, […]
Guess what? The Center for Freedom and Prosperity (the ‘tax cheats lobby’ according to David Cay Johnston in ‘Perfectly Legal’) has come out and said of Liechtenstein tax fraud:
Blame German Tax Law, Not Liechtenstein Privacy Law
Staggering.
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Forbes has a good article on this today. I admit I recognise quite a lot of what is said. What is interesting is that Forbes says:
What of the full-trained accountants, lawyers and bankers who live and work in these havens and allow such funds to be passed through? In many cases they simply don’t ask […]
It’s now clear that HMRC have bought data on those using Liechtenstein from the same source as the German security service. They may, indeed, have paid the German security service for that data.
I have given more interviews on this today. The focus seems threefold. First, is it legal? Answer, yes it is, HMRC can do […]
