{"id":10521,"date":"2011-06-15T14:05:21","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T13:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=10521"},"modified":"2011-06-15T14:05:21","modified_gmt":"2011-06-15T13:05:21","slug":"jersey-has-exchanged-just-36-pieces-of-tax-data-in-more-than-4-years-which-is-a-long-way-from-being-transparent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2011\/06\/15\/jersey-has-exchanged-just-36-pieces-of-tax-data-in-more-than-4-years-which-is-a-long-way-from-being-transparent\/","title":{"rendered":"Jersey has exchanged just 36 pieces of tax data in more than 4 years – which is a long way from being transparent"},"content":{"rendered":"

A leak of the OECD's peer review on tax information exchange agreements for\u00a0Jersey has been leaked on this blog<\/a> - and not by me, for a change.<\/p>\n

What it makes clear is that:<\/p>\n

Since January 2007, Jersey has received 36 EOI requests, made by 7 different EOI partners.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As is now known to be true, \u00a0this report is currently stalled because of objections raised by Norway ( and maybe other countries as well), \u00a0but I'm quite sure that this factual information is correct.<\/p>\n

Jersey likes to claim:<\/a><\/p>\n

The Island decided early on in its development that the long term future lay in\u00a0being recognised as being cooperative, transparent and well regulated with a\u00a0strict adherence to international standards.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If anyone - Philip Ozouf included - thinks that\u00a0exchanging 36 pieces of tax data in more than four years makes a place\u00a0transparent\u00a0then they need help with their\u00a0understanding\u00a0of the meaning of the English language.<\/p>\n

The reality is that it is a\u00a0secrecy jurisdiction with \u00a3367 bn hidden away in it in December 2010<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And as is also true, it's a place that has signed\u00a0tax information exchange agreements knowing them to be almost entirely ineffective. I explain why in detail here, where I note<\/a>:<\/p>\n

TIEAs incorporate an inherent problem. A request for information under a TIEA must provide or\u00a0state:<\/p>\n

(a) the identity of the person under examination or investigation;<\/p>\n

(b) what information is sought;<\/p>\n

(c) the tax purpose for which it is sought;<\/p>\n

(d) the grounds for believing that the information requested is held within the jurisdiction of\u00a0which request is made;<\/p>\n

(e) to the extent known, the name and address of any person believed to be in possession\u00a0of the requested information.<\/p>\n

The reason for the low number of information requests becomes obvious immediately. There is\u00a0considerable secrecy within tax havens. This is either created by law e.g. those that establish banking\u00a0secrecy, or through the combination of legal entities and professional services designed to ensure\u00a0that the activities of those availing themselves of those facilities are opaque. As a consequence it is,\u00a0for example, exceptionally difficult to link bank accounts operated by a company in turn controlled\u00a0by a trust with a particular taxpayer in another jurisdiction who may or may not be settler and \/ or\u00a0beneficiary of that arrangement. In consequence the existence of TIEAs is immaterial: the reality is\u00a0that they have little or no practical value in very many cases because the \u2018smoking gun\u2019 required to\u00a0trigger the information request either does not exist or cannot be created to the standard required\u00a0by the Tax Information Exchange Agreement process.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I said this in 2009 when there was a rush to sign these deals: I will say it again now. Tax information exchange agreements are hardly owrth the paper they're written on without the smoking gun to ensure that orher countries are aware that their taxpayers have interests in the location that signs them. This latest evidence from Jersey\u00a0proves\u00a0that.<\/p>\n

And it surely ends the claim of\u00a0transparency\u00a0for good -\u00a0because\u00a0that is shown to be\u00a0straightforward\u00a0nonsense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A leak of the OECD’s peer review on tax information exchange agreements for\u00a0Jersey has been leaked on this blog – and not by me, for
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jersey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}