Financial Transparency Coalition

I reported yesterday that the zero / 10 tax regimes adopted by all three of the Crown Dependencies have failed the test set by the European Commission for compliance with the EU Code of Conduct for Business Taxation (Guernsey has failed by default). There are those who do, of course, wish to ignore the news and that is their prerogative. I admit that this is a leak, but one which I’m entirely confident is right. Failure on three out of five counts is a dramatic rejection of the deliberately abusive structure of zero...

The Isle of Man Today web site carries the following back handed compliment today, the following being an edited (shortened) version of the story:

We have also written a story about a letter from a group who thinks the Isle of Man should ditch zero-10 company tax. The group of 12 people – including a high profile charity worker – says that we’d be better off in the long run and have a better reputation if we re-introduced company taxes. You might remember that a few weeks ago (August 10, to be precise) we ran a story...

According to Isle of Man Today the island is in deep trouble:

AN end to the current zero-10 corporate tax regime could devastate the largest sectors of the Manx economy according to a survey carried out of business professionals in the Island. Jobs and business would leave the Island and go to rival jurisdictions if the Isle of Man introduced corporate tax.

As it explains:

The Island cut corporate tax to zero in 2006 for most industries to lure more business here. The Channel Islands followed suit. But the European Union, which initially did not complain about the Manx tax...

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...