Offshore Havens Doing Their Best Despite Criticism!

Offshore tax havens such as Switzerland and Luxembourg are signing up to exchange of information agreements yet still facing criticism

Since America and Britain dragged themselves and the rest of the world into financial turmoil, countries like the US and Germany have been tackling the issue of illegal tax evasion head on in a bid to claw back taxation revenue to try and block the holes in their own economies.

They have been joined by nations across Europe initially, and then by all G20 countries – and now the latest news is that sanctions have been agreed upon and that they will be imposed on non-cooperative tax havens.

However, most offshore tax havens are doing their absolute best to comply with exchange of information requests for example, and they are doing so despite criticism still being levelled against them.  It seems that some countries are desperate to try and deflect attention away from their own economic incompetence, and instead shine a spotlight on offshore jurisdictions such as Switzerland and Luxembourg…

When the G20 leaders joined forces with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in calling for a crack down on havens that promote or allow illegal tax evasion, legitimate countries that have favourable taxation regimes were very quick to agree to sign up to new legislation on the exchange of tax relevant information.  Over 40 new tax information exchange agreements have now been signed between compliant countries, this number is significant because most have been signed in the last six months proving just how cooperative offshore tax havens are being…

And yet still leaders of high tax countries such as Germany and American are not happy.  They are continuing to complain that these agreements don’t go far enough, and that they are cumbersome to implement in the event that tax evasion is believed to have taken place, and that the process to then get the information required is incredibly time consuming and complex.

We would like to raise the point that at least these so called tax havens have signed the agreements placed before them, that they are aware that if they didn’t then sanctions would be levelled against them, and that they are being fully cooperative according to the demands being made of them.  So stop criticising them and get your own economic affairs in order before you wade into other nations and demand that they run their own fiscal affairs according to your terms and rules.  It is reminiscent of the way democratic countries try and force democracy on everyone, and how Christians went around trying to ‘convert’ people during the Crusades.

All nations have the right to set tax rates and rules individually, and all nations who agree to fully comply with the exchange of pertinent information where illegal taxation activity is believe to have taken place should be respected rather than continually criticised.