It’s often argued that tax havens cause no harm and just “keep the wheels of trade moving”. That’s not true. As Christian Aid note in a new report: In new research on Switzerland – the country at the top of the Financial Secrecy Index – Christian Aid reveals that as much as US$578bn (£367.6bn) could have been shifted from developing countries
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As the FT has just reported: Switzerland is to impose a stringent set of curbs on executive pay, after voters overwhelmingly backed a package of measures that will sharply tilt the balance of power away from companies’ boards and towards their shareholders. The package is the brainchild of Swiss entrepreneur Thomas Minder, and includes giving
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World Radio Switzerland has just reported: Switzerland has six months to improve its tax practices or it will be blacklisted by the European Commission. That’s a warning given by a European Commissioner for Taxation and Customs, Algirdas Semeta, to the print media in Switzerland. He says if the EC’s expectations aren’t met some EU countries
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Some interesting legal developments appear to be underway which suggest that Luxembourg and Austria may be forced to abandon banking secrecy. From Le Temps: Austria and Luxembourg still refuse to abolish bank secrecy in favor of the automatic exchange of information within the European Union (EU). But U.S. tax law FATCA could well change this. The
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The New York Times has reported: Switzerland’s oldest private bank on Thursday admitted to helping Americans evade United States taxes, the first time a foreign financial institution has pleaded guilty to tax law violations. Representatives for Wegelin & Company, a Swiss bank founded in 1741, appeared in Federal District Court in Manhattan and acknowledged that
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Fox News (not a common source here) has reported: Switzerland’s president is hinting that the nation may be open to accepting an automatic exchange of banking data to crack down on tax evasion. The government has until now opposed that for fear of undermining its tradition of banking secrecy. Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, who is also the
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The FT has, in a very welcome editorial, come out strongly against the depl;y offensive UK – Switzerland tax deal that was made UK law this year and which comes into effect soon. Commenting favourably on the German parliaments recent rejection of a similar deal it says: The rejection of a tax agreement with Switzerland by the upper house of Germany’s parliament is a
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This is from 2009, but as important today as it was then: Ivan Pictet, president of the Geneva Financial Centre, has been actively promoting bank secrecy this week in a number of interviews with Swiss media. In a key interview with Le Temps, published Tuesday 24 February he argues that the loss of banking secrecy would
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The usually reliable Swissinfo reports: Most Swiss newspapers have given the last rites to the withholding tax model, following the “no” from the German upper house of parliament to a tax treaty aimed at legalising undeclared assets held by Germans in Swiss banks. Only the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) still had faith in the “ingenious
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