Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Guernsey resists pressure to cooperate

Today's edition of the Jersey Evening Post carries an article saying that both Guernsey and Jersey will reject Michael Foot's suggestion that the Crown Dependencies should set a firm date for applying the automatic information exchange procedures of the EU's STD (Savings Tax Directive).

The reasons given for rejecting the proposal? According to the JEP:

Both Jersey and Guernsey have opposed the move, saying that to sign up to the EUSD before their competitors could damage the finance industry.

Now let's get this straight. The purpose of automatic information exchange is to deter tax evasion. Nothing else. And both islands refuse to sign up to this process on the grounds that they will lose their competitive edge. A reasonable person will assume this can only mean their competitive edge lies with providing secretive facilities for tax evasion by non-residents. And these places have the gall to say they're "cooperative" jurisdictions. Shame on them.

1 Comments:

Blogger Physiocrat said...

We don't need to rely on these dodgy outfits to "disclose" in order to prevent tax evasion. The remedy is entirely in our own hands.

2:52 pm  

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