{"id":16585,"date":"2012-07-30T08:29:56","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T07:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=16585"},"modified":"2012-07-30T08:29:56","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T07:29:56","slug":"tax-is-the-answer-even-in-the-cayman-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/07\/30\/tax-is-the-answer-even-in-the-cayman-islands\/","title":{"rendered":"Tax is the answer – even in the Cayman Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"

I admit to quiet amusement at the news that the Cayman Islands is planning to introduce its first ever income tax. As CayCompass.Com reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Premier Bush\u2019s announcement last Wednesday that the Cayman Islands government would seek to implement a 10 per cent \u00e2\u20ac\u00a8payroll tax for work permit holders who earn more than $20,000 per year as early as next month has touched off a firestorm of controversy and plunged nearly \u00e2\u20ac\u00a8everyone in the country \u2014 even those who don\u2019t normally follow local politics all that closely \u2014 into a \u00e2\u20ac\u00a8spirited debate.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bush followed up on Thursday evening, stating that the government\u2019s budget process has \u201cgone as far as we can go\u201d and that Cayman was now awaiting a response on it from the United Kingdom\u2019s Foreign and \u00e2\u20ac\u00a8Commonwealth Office.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let's just unpack that for a moment. First, this is an income tax. Cayman has never had one before.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Second in true tax haven style the tax is discriminatory: only expats pay.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Third, for once discrimination may have a\u00a0point: Cayman has sold out its entire economy to expats so there is a logic in charging them.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Fourth, the reason for this tax is that its business modelling is failing.\u00a0Surprisingly\u00a0to some, a no income tax economy can't\u00a0balance its books. The Republican Party in the US should take note. Some in it think the US could do\u00a0without income tax.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Fifth, the real decision maker on all this is the UK. The charade that Cayman is\u00a0independent is shot through by that admission. The buck stops in London. Which is why the buck for the tax abuse in Cayman also stops in London. Oh, and why Jersey et al are also subject to the same\u00a0rules, whatever they like to say. Like the local councils they are, all; they do is\u00a0ultimately\u00a0subject to central control from London.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Finally, the\u00a0situation is desperate. These places never admit crisis until it hits them. The\u00a0same\u00a0will be true in the\u00a0Crown Dependencies.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I admit to quiet amusement at the news that the Cayman Islands is planning to introduce its first ever income tax. As CayCompass.Com reports: Premier
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":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cayman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16585","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=16585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}