|
|
|
|
|
Ireland among ‘most secretive’ tax havens
01 November 2009 By Susan Mitchell
Ireland is one of the world’s most secretive tax havens, according to a report released today.
The Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) was described by its authors as a ranking of the most secretive and uncooperative tax havens in the world. It was compiled by Tax Justice Network International, a group seeking greater transparency about the operation of ‘offshore’ finance centres, and the Christian Aid charity.
The FSI analysed the level of secrecy of jurisdictions and their reluctance to cooperate with tax authorities in other countries.
These factors gave each haven an ‘opacity score’, which was combined with a weighting that reflected the scale of the cross-border financial activity the haven hosts, to determine its financial secrecy ranking.
According to the index, the most secretive havens were (1) USA (Delaware); (2) Luxembourg; (3) Switzerland; (4) Cayman Islands; (5) Britain (London) and (6) Ireland. Ireland had a rating value of 1.4, compared to a rating of 15 for the US,11 for Luxembourg, and 3.5 for Britain.
John Christensen, director of the Tax Justice Network’s international secretariat, said secrecy came at a price.
He said financial secrecy provides cover for a range of crimes and abusive practices, including money-laundering, terrorist financing and embezzlement.
‘‘In countries where most has been done to deregulate the financial markets, trusts and certain kinds of companies are often used to provide deeper, more devious forms of secrecy than can be achieved with bank privacy alone," said Christensen.
|
|
|
