Financial Transparency Coalition

News reaches me of a meeting of the EU’s Tax Code of Conduct Group, held last week. This Group was established to monitor compliance with the EU Code of Conduct on Business Taxation – established in 1997. Aficionados of this blog will know that in the wake of publication of this Code – with which the UK’s Crown Dependencies are obliged to comply since they are part of the UK for these purposes – The Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey (in that order) announced plans to create what were described as zero/ten...

Much as expected, the Foot report into the Crown Dependencies and the Overseas Territories is disappointing. Appoint the wrong man to do the job – and Michael Foot was always the wrong man to do this job – and he has even defected to the Tories whilst undertaking it in an extraordinary show of poor etiquette – and you will get the wrong answers. How could a man who makes his living from offshore have ever done this job? But the report, none the less seeks to delivers some small punches. It is, for example, adamant...

Outlook: And so Liechtenstein has surrendered. Following on from the tax information exchange deal with the US comes a similar one with the UK. There will be an amnesty for around 5,000 account holders who could have stashed up to £3bn in the tiny principality, together with a tacit assurance that they won't be prosecuted if they agree to assume the position and pay up. They'd be well advised to do so because it is more than people in other tax havens may be offered.

ST. PETER PORT, GUERNSEY — The panoramic view of the English Channel and Guernsey’s craggy western shore from Guy Hands’s new £6 million home is splendid. No less so is the vista from his soon-to-be-completed rooftop office here on the eastern side of this small English-speaking island just off the French coast of Normandy.