Bloomberg: ‘Shut Down Havens, Steal Business’
“The U.S. is becoming one of the world’s best places to hide money,” according to a column by the Bloomberg View editorial board, which said that ”traditional havens as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands are complying”, adding that “from a certain perspective, all this might look pretty smart: Shut down foreign tax havens and then steal their business. ”
Their article said “Seven years ago, the U.S. led an effort to address a problem facing governments everywhere. Each year, people manage to avoid paying an estimated $2.5 trillion in income tax — a giant sum that could be used to combat poverty, update infrastructure or lower tax rates for law-abiding citizens.
“Now, however, the U.S. is becoming one of the world’s best places to hide money from the tax collector. It’s a distinction that the country would do well to shed.
“In 2009, amid growing budget deficits and a tax-fraud scandal at Swiss bank UBS AG, the Group of 20 developed and developing nations came to an agreement: They would no longer tolerate the network of havens, shell companies and secret accounts that had long abetted tax evasion.
“A year later, the U.S. passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which required foreign financial institutions to report the identities and assets of potential U.S. taxpayers to the Internal Revenue Service.
“Under threat of losing access to the U.S. financial system, more than 100 countries — including such traditional havens as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands — are complying or have agreed to comply.
“The U.S. was expected to reciprocate, by sharing data on the accounts of foreign taxpayers with their respective governments. Yet Congress rejected the Obama administration’s repeated requests to make the necessary changes to the tax code. As a result, the Treasury cannot compel U.S. banks to reveal information such as account balances and names of beneficial owners.
“From a certain perspective, all this might look pretty smart: Shut down foreign tax havens and then steal their business. ”
You can read the full column here on Bloomberg View.
Might is right.
Where is the Minister of Finance? How hasn’t he commented on this? He applauded the UK taxing the likes of Google so is this different or is he still trying to work out the impact on Bermuda?
We don’t really have a minister of finance any more. We have a “missing” premier who does the job in his spare time, when he happens to be in Bermuda.
Yes he’s still busy trying to help all the voters that left you with 12 seats in the oba/UBP. Look how the mighty have fallen. Just to think I use to vote for you circus clowns and eat the peanuts.
This is chess not checkers, this warning shots…