Links Aug 12

Panama Trade Deal Would Undercut Efforts To Get Rich Americans To Pay Taxes Huffington Post
Aug 11 - See interview with Rebecca Wilkins, Citizens for Tax Justice on the inneffective Tax Informtion Exchange Agreement, "a perfect Catch 22, that gets the Panamian government out of actually giving us any information". And reporter Zach Carter calling a Panamanian tax consulantant who affirms that, despite the trade deal, a client's "privacy is absolutely protected" and "tax free".

Export and import mispricing; the big cloud over dirty cash Business Daily
Aug 12 - "The predominant way in which capital is hidden in trade and moved abroad is through the pricing of imports and exports. This strategy is employed not only by multinational companies but also by unethical local or national companies, traders and wealthy individuals seeking ways to minimize their tax obligations or ways to stash their wealth abroad ... Poor countries are particularly vulnerable to transfer mispricing since they typically will have little access to the necessary financial information from both the local and the parent company to detect mispricing."

Stopping the UK's Looters AllAfrica.com
Aug 11 - "Not to deny or underplay the major significance of what the UK's cities are currently experiencing, but rather to ask why we see such a sharp distinction between the response to these scenes and what we might term as 'legalised looting'. What could these examples of 'legalised looting' be? If we try to re-appropriate the definition of looting, we could for example point to multinational tax avoidance (by companies such as Vodafone and Barclays) ... "

Anti-Corruption Views - Seeking sunlight: The Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act TrustLaw
Aug 12 - In what is perhaps his most oft-quoted comment, Brandeis wrote that “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,” by which he meant that information is power. Information on who runs companies, how they are run and how they are financed is crucial, he believed, in an efficient and fair capitalist system ... Where are companies based?; where do corporations pay taxes? and what activities do corporations have offshore? The answers to these queries are important.

Investors upset at Trio fraud sentence ABC
Aug 12 - On retirees and investors being robbed of about $180 million by a Canadian national who "used complex tax havens to steal the money he conned out of investors ... even keeping $1 million in an offshore account for himself."

Are the French next for a downgrade? Ask Paddy Power Washington Post
Aug 11 - The bookmakers are getting in on the credit rating game - “The long shots in the race are European microstate Liechtenstein and United Kingdom tax havens the Isle of Man and Guernsey” at 100-1, the bookmaker says."

Channel Islands Trust Firm Buys Swiss Law Firm WealthBriefing
Aug 3 - Just to give an example of strands within the tax haven spiderweb (as described in Treasure Islands). A Channel Islands-based independent trust company, has bought a Swiss private wealth law firm and its New Zealand trust business for an undisclosed sum. (See here for a recent blog on New Zealand as a secrecy jurisdiction).