Financial Transparency Coalition

On September 9th the Cayman Islands introduced a bill for the establishment of new Special Economic Zones. The most Alice-in-Wonderland part of the bill is this bit, on page 14:

"A special economic zone shall be deemed to be outside of the Islands and not in the Islands."

Emphasis added. So where will this zone be? It seems that it will, for the relevant purposes, effectively be 'elsewhere' - which, in practical terms, means 'nowhere.' This 'it's elsewhere, don't-blame-us, we-can't-regulate-this' approach is what a lot of the activity of secrecy jurisdictions is designed to do - it's not so common,...

I note the new Chair of Cayman Finance seems determined to continue in the tradition of his predecessor. Interim Chairman Roy McTaggart , who recently succeeded Anthony Travers OBE, has sent a letter to Ronnie Campbell, MP because  he referred to the Cayman Islands as a tax haven during a debate in the House of Commons last week. McTaggart said, according to Cayman News Service, that:

Cayman is a fully transparent jurisdiction and not a place where individuals or corporations are able to “hide money”.

And, of course, the ritual denial that Cayman is a tax haven was delivered. I’d have hoped that,...

Bob Diamond was before the Treasury Select Committee Tuesday. Chuka Umunna, MP fr Streatham, was one of those questioning him. And as the Daily Mail notes, he tabled some new evidence on the use of tax havens / secrecy jurisdictions by Barclays: I admit I spoke to Chuka’s office about this before the event, suggesting how they might find this data from the annual return forms of the bank.

I am fascinated by the recent attack on my work and that of John Christensen and the Tax Justice Network by Cayman Finance. It is not new of course, many tax havens / secrecy jurisdictions have made such attacks before. And no doubt they will do is again. But in making such a tax they show their real colours: they show that they are the real enemies of free and fair markets, and we are their strongest supporters. Why else would they be so annoyed? If you believe in free markets you believe in tax...