{"id":58940,"date":"2021-09-02T06:38:22","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T05:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=58940"},"modified":"2021-09-02T06:38:22","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T05:38:22","slug":"how-do-tax-havens-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2021\/09\/02\/how-do-tax-havens-work\/","title":{"rendered":"How do tax havens work?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"s3\"><span class=\"s2\">In this third video in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2021\/09\/01\/what-are-tax-havens-used-for\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a series on tax havens<\/a> I <\/span><span class=\"s2\">look at<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> how tax havens work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"s3\"><span class=\"s2\">As I explained in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2021\/08\/31\/what-is-a-tax-haven-3\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the first video<\/a> in the series, the key to understanding tax havens is to understand that their primary product is not now tax abuse, but a more general abuse of the regulation of other countries. Key to that process is secrecy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"s3\"><span class=\"s2\">This understanding gave rise to my<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> theory<\/span><span class=\"s2\">, first published in 2009, of how tax havens really work. That understanding has underpinned much change in regulation since then and is reflected in the work of a number of authors, including that of Nick <\/span><span class=\"s2\">Shaxson<\/span><span class=\"s2\">,<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> who wrote the <\/span><span class=\"s2\">best-selling<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> \u2018Treasure Islands\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"s3\"><span class=\"s2\">My theory is based around how the users of tax havens try to get around regulation by mo<\/span><span class=\"s2\">v<\/span><span class=\"s2\">ing the recording of transactions from the place where they really are, and <\/span><span class=\"s2\">might usually be<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> regulated, (\u2018here\u2019, as I describe it), to <\/span><span class=\"s2\">either <\/span><span class=\"s2\">another identifiable place that should regulate them (\u2018somewhere\u2019, as I call it), or to a place that does purposely not disclose that it may be regulating the transaction (\u2018elsewhere\u2019<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> in my description, which refers to most tax haven activity<\/span><span class=\"s2\">), or to the ultimate goal of the tax haven user - which is \u2018nowhere\u2019, meaning that the transaction is <\/span><span class=\"s2\">knowingly <\/span><span class=\"s2\">not regulated anywhere at all. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"s3\"><span class=\"s2\">Understanding these stages of separation is key to understanding how tax havens work. I explain how in this video. <a href=\"https:\/\/fsi.taxjustice.net\/Archive2011\/Notes%20and%20Reports\/SecrecyWorld.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The paper in which the thinking was first explored is here.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How do tax havens work?\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jL__2onlVYI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this third video in a series on tax havens I look at how tax havens work. As I explained in the first video in<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2021\/09\/02\/how-do-tax-havens-work\/\"><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":[14,35,16,65,80,10,55,32,97,194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-economics","category-ethics","category-regulation","category-secrecy-jurisdictions","category-tax-avoidance","category-tax-evasion","category-tax-havens","category-tax-justice","category-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58940","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=58940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}