Financial Transparency Coalition

LONDON - The new tax deal between the UK and Switzerland amounts to collusion with criminality and will seriously damage poor countries’ attempts to collect the billions they lose to tax dodgers, Christian Aid is warning.

Jeffrey Sachs is back in the Financial Times with a fine article about the failed economic leadership of western governments, and tax havens feature prominently in his analysis. “Tax havens”, he notes, “have proliferated even as the politicians have occasionally railed against them” we like the twist to the politician's collective tails implied by the word 'occasionally'. And he continues: “In the end the poor are doubly hit, first by global market forces, then by the ability of the rich to park money at low taxes in hideaways around the world.” We have argued for many, many years, that tax havens are a major faultline in the...

As the Wall Street Journal notes this morning:

It’s time to move on to other shores for European banks serving wealthy clients: Switzerland will remain famous for its cheese but not for its banking secret anymore. Monday ABN Amro, the Netherlands’ third biggest bank, announced the decision to sell its private banking operations in Switzerland to local operator Union Bancaire Privee. The move can be seen as the start of a migration of smaller non-Swiss banks from a country which was the perfect place for tax evaders for decades.

WASHINGTON, DC – Amidst speculation over details of a possible tax agreement between Switzerland and Britain, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) reiterated the message that a broader, global solution to illicit financial practices and banking secrecy is needed.