I am fascinated to note a very recent contribution from an Isle of Man lawyer to the somewhat limited literature on tax havens and human rights abuses, which is an area of work that the Tax Justice Network is pioneering. Advocate Paul Beckett argues, in a paper that is well worth reading, that:
The tax havens and low tax areas in facilitating what are from their domestic perspective legitimate structures and taxation advantages are compromising the international human rights legal continuum, and providing launch facilities for human rights abusive non-State actors.
The right to privacy has ceased to be a shield and has become a sword in the war of aggressive tax planning and in the concealment of the ownership and purpose of an evolving range of increasingly complex — yet curiously hollow and, in human rights terms, unaccountable — structures. These structures have the potential both to enable non-State actors to operate neo-colonially and to impede international development. They are wholly at odds with current thinking on the relationship of business to human rights.
There is a great deal to agree with there.
And for those who want to understand why the Isle of Man is key to this abuse the study of its Purpose Trusts in the paper is very valuable indeed.
The conclusion is clear: the abuse goes on, and here we have an Isle of Man lawyer brave enough to admit it.
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Brave indeed: there are consequences for those who speak out in a closed polity of favours, patronage and backscratching.
The Isle of Man exists in the Third Tier of tax evasion – offshore vehicles for mere millionaires – and they deal with some decidedly shady characters in a system where everyone gets on by keeping secrets, and by keeping quiet about things that aren’t actually secret at all.
This isn’t just about tax – although that is, from where we see the Island, the major issue – it’s a problem pervading public life and politics. So I would predict that there is ‘undiscovered’ corruption and covered-up crime, damaging vices and a supportive silence of insiders; and probably a childrens’ home abuse scandal in there somewhere.
Theis may sound familiar to observers of the Channel Islands: they are far from unique: and they, too, are a place where speaking up has consequences.
We would do well to watch out for those who speak out: they need influential friends.
I agree
I’m probably wrong here, I don’t know but it strikes me that some of the ‘non-state actors’ that Paul Beckett is referring to are corporations. Corporations don’t have a “RIGHT to privacy” do they? As publicly listed companies they are they are meant to be open and accountable,
I agree with you
The world at large does not