The government has said that it is committed to cracking down on tax avoidance in the UK, but should more be done to prevent people from using off-shore tax havens?
Anthony Travers, head of the Cayman Stock Exchange, told the Today programme's Simon Jack that tax avoidance is entirely a function of domestic tax law.
"Tax competition is a function of the sovereign right of a nation," he said, insisting that any Cayman Island companies are "taxed in accordance to United States law".
Nicholas Shaxson, author of Treasure Islands, told Simon Jack that it is terribly difficult for tax a authority like the US to stop haemorrhaging capital to off-shore companies.
"It is nonsense saying that tax heavens are blameless," he said.
"Once you start undermining the tax systems of other countries through tax evasion, that is a form of economic warfare."
You can listen to the interview here.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
An interesting view but the issue isn’t offshore v onshore. Its also EU country v EU country snd its US state v US state. Tax competition is far more widespread and so “economic warfare” exists within the EU and within the US.
Why pick on the US v Cayman? Why not the US v Delaware and US v Wyoming? The US could deal with that overnight if they had the appetite.
As the Tax Justice Network has often said