{"id":14952,"date":"2012-04-05T10:13:25","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T09:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=14952"},"modified":"2012-04-05T10:13:25","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T09:13:25","slug":"the-ft-slams-the-swiss-tax-deal-and-the-uks-sell-out-to-tax-criminals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/04\/05\/the-ft-slams-the-swiss-tax-deal-and-the-uks-sell-out-to-tax-criminals\/","title":{"rendered":"The FT slams the Swiss tax deal and the UK&#8217;s sell out to tax criminals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u00a0couldn't get much clearer than this. Having noted in an editorial this morning that Germany is having second thoughts about\u00a0signing\u00a0a tax deal with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/0\/9f50c3f8-7e5b-11e1-b20a-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1r9gtv3eq\" target=\"_blank\">Switzerland it goes on to say<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>They are right to reject the deal \u2014 just as the UK, which has\u00a0<a title=\"Swiss tax deal to raise UK revenue - FT.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/cms\/s\/0\/df9d4d9e-ce6d-11e0-b755-00144feabdc0.html\">concluded a similar agreement<\/a>, should have done. It cannot be right to exonerate tax cheaters from legal liability as long as they have paid less or given up less information about their tax affairs than what the law exacts from those who keep their money at home.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div>Quite so.\u00a0But our\u00a0government\u00a0wants to help such criminals and so do the management of\u00a0H M Revenue &amp; Customs. The FT is not amused. As it concludes:<\/div>\n<div>\n<blockquote><p>Indeed, the willingness of the UK \u2014 and of Germany\u2019s federal government \u2014 to sell out on the principle that taxpayers must declare their taxable earnings and assets is of far greater import than the prospect for immediate tax windfalls. Fiscal austerity has created public pressure for improving cross-border tax co-operation, and the battle is now being fought over the shape of a future regime. There is a risk of setting a precedent by which governments give up on better information exchange between tax authorities if banks themselves act as collectors from clients allowed to remain anonymous.<\/p>\n<p>That would suit Switzerland well \u2014 no doubt a reason for its current aggressive reaction. Other states, however, should insist that all taxpayers obey the same rules.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div>\u00a0The\u00a0Tax Justice Network could not have said it better.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>So why is our\u00a0government\u00a0so willing to sell out to crime - because that's exactly what they're doing.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u00a0couldn&#8217;t get much clearer than this. Having noted in an editorial this morning that Germany is having second thoughts about\u00a0signing\u00a0a tax deal with Switzerland it<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/04\/05\/the-ft-slams-the-swiss-tax-deal-and-the-uks-sell-out-to-tax-criminals\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/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":[63,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-switzerland","category-tax-evasion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14952","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=14952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}