I’ve been accused on occasion of focusing too strongly on dubious practice in Jersey. I accept that it’s the haven I know best, but sometimes another needs attention. Take the Isle of man for example, and Lorne House Trust Limited in particular. I’ll ignore for now the complete nominee service they provide for running an [...]
I guess it’s fairly obvious that there is a short answer to the above question. It is ‘yes’. The Netherlands is a notorious tax haven.
Equally, those who know me also know that whilst I’m happy to draw unambiguous conclusions, I like to do so in the basis of reasoned argument. This is a case in [...]
I’ve had my attention drawn to the Jyske Bank in Denmark. It says of itself:
Jyske Bank employs a staff of more than 4,000 and operates 119 Danish branches, which makes it the second largest independent Danish bank. We offer a full range of financial solutions to retail as well as small and medium-sized corporate clients.
So [...]
The following appeared in the letters page of the Jersey Evening Post on 24 October 2006 (except that I’ve corrected it’s typographical errors, a sin of which I do know I am not innocent by the way):
Jersey trusts should be recognised as bare trusts
From Richard Murphy, director, Tax Research.
I NOTE the article (JEP, 13 October) [...]
Jersey’s new trust laws have been the subject to some comment on this site, and in the Jersey and UK national press, at least partly as a result. There is, however, more to say. Whilst considering the emails that were sent to the Observer two weeks ago it occurred to me that the consequences of [...]
I’ve written a bit about sham trusts on here of late. It’s good to have the evidence therefore that they really do impose a cost on society.
The US Senate report provides some examples. But there are more. Take another example from the US, reported in the Amarillo Globe News.
A 68 year old local doctor named [...]
I was reminded by an email from Jeffrey Owens (head of tax at the OECD) that I have not given sufficient (in fact, any) coverage to what happened at the recent meeting of the OECD’s Forum on Tax Administration in Seoul.
The communique from the meeting said (amongst other things):
Our discussions in Seoul confirmed that international [...]
The correspondence between Jersey’s tax officials, civil servants and politicians draw attention to some pretty unsavoury consequences of that island’s new trust laws. It would therefore have been all too easy to overlook the issues raised with regard to the introduction of 0/10 corporate taxation in the island.
The 0/10 regime is Jersey’s economically suicidal response [...]
The Lib Dems in the UK have voted to drop their plan to increase the top rate of tax to 50% for those earning over £100,000.
In my heart I know all the reasons why many wanted to keep this policy. In reality, I’m happy with the reform on condition that (and in the case of [...]
The Observer published a story today about an email from Jersey that had been sent to it, seemingly inadvertently. Nick Mathiason at the Observer was kind enough to ask my opinion on the mail, and to send me a copy since he knows of my work there. For those who don’t, I advised a Scrutiny [...]
