July 11th, 2011
I, like many in the tax justice arena, was very dubious when the OECD set up the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes to undertake peer reviews of the operation of tax information exchange by participating states in the aftermath of the financial crisis and the rush to sign tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs).
TIEAs are deeply flawed and the OECD designed and promoted them.
The OECD was also remarkably cagey about this whole process: civil society was excluded from most involvement, far too many tax havens appeared to get positions of influence over it, the...
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July 8th, 2011
Liechtenstein has just announced the latest sums it has collected under the terms of the European Savings Tax Directive. It was a
measly €7.8 million.
Working backwards this is 20% tax on €40 million interest. Assuming 2% interest, this is tax on interest income on € 2 billion capital (which may seriously overstate the case: German bonds paying over 3% p.a.).
Liechtenstein
banks have € 140 billion assets under management.
June 14th, 2011
Rumour reaches me that Jersey has failed its OECD peer review.
The
OECD says of the peer review process that:
The international fight against cross-border tax evasion has entered a new phase with the launch by countries participating in the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information of a peer review process covering a first group of 18 jurisdictions: Australia, Barbados, Bermuda, Botswana, Cayman Islands, Denmark, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Jersey, Mauritius, Monaco, Norway, Panama, Qatar, San Marino, Seychelles and Trinidad & Tobago.
The reviews are a first step in a three-year process approved in February by the Global Forum in response to...
June 9th, 2011
People only form companies for economic reasons. There really is no other reason to have one.
Despite that just one in three companies in the UK pay tax. The data is based on the year to March 2010.
All the details on how I got the data is in a report here. The facts are:
a) There were about 2.6 million companies on the Register throughout most of that year.
b) Of these about 500,000 claimed to be dormant.
c) That leaves 2.1 million potentially taxable.
d) But I guessed at least 180,000 of the...
