FINANCE: Tax Havens in Spotlight at G20 Meet
Lucy Komisar*
NEW YORK Mar 29 (IPS) - This could be the moment when a fatal
blow is delivered to the worlds tax havens. Or it could be
another largely cosmetic change that allows offshore financial
centres such as Switzerland the Cayman Islands and Liechtenstein
to deflect attacks on the system by sacrificing the few tax
miscreants that governments catch in their nets.
Decisions at the G20 government leaders meeting in London Apr. 2
will set the direction.
Financial centres with bank secrecy laws are blamed by the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development which
represents 30 developed economies for hiding some 5 to 7
trillion dollars offshore so the profits they produce evade
taxes. This costs the U.S. 100 billion dollars in taxes annually
says Michigan Senator Carl Levin who has introduced legislation
to combat offshore tax evasion. The numbers are guesses as bank
secrecy masks the figures. Read the rest of this entry »