UK: Statist criminal Gordon Brown seeks to turn tax havens into tax hells

THE Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has put British overseas tax havens under renewed pressure to end their culture of secrecy within six months or face sanctions.

Mr Brown has written to all British Crown dependencies and overseas territories, setting them a September deadline to sign agreements to share tax information with the authorities.

Leaders at the recent G20 summit in London pledged to crack down on the tax abuse and shadow banking through offshore jurisdictions that was central to the global financial crisis.

The new move by Downing Street puts Britain in the unusual position of threatening punitive action against its own dependencies.

Mr Brown has also signalled in the correspondence that he wants to tackle not just illegal tax evasion through personal offshore bank accounts, but also tax haven companies used for tax avoidance by corporations and super-rich individuals.

Seven British territories were named by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development when it published, to coincide with the G20 summit, a list of havens that had either not agreed to, or not yet implemented, its international tax standards.

Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos were all placed on the OECD's "grey list" for failing to deliver on promises to be more transparent, despite signing up to do so, in some cases, several years ago.

Mr Brown has also written to the Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, telling them that he expects rapid further progress to end tax and banking secrecy.

All three are on the OECD's "white list" of jurisdictions that have already implemented a number of bilateral agreements to share tax information with other authorities, but they are still used by companies engaged in tax avoidance.

Four countries placed on the OECD "black list" because they had not even agreed to share tax information have already changed their positions under the global political pressure.

Costa Rica, Malaysia, the Philippines and Uruguay have been moved to the grey list, having promised to reform.

LNK

UK: Statist criminal Gordon Brown seeks to turn tax havens into tax hells

UK: Statist criminal Gordon Brown seeks to turn tax havens into tax hells

Anarcho-Capitalist Categorical Imperatives

AnCaps' Laissez-faire Free Trade Zone