Globally Switzerland is top of the list followed by the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg and Hong Kong, all ahead of the U.S. which is in 5th place.
Every year governments around the world lose around 250 billion dollars in taxes, as a consequence of the rich keeping their assets in tax havens.
The Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) of the Tax Justice Network is a tool for understanding global financial secrecy, corruption and illicit financial flows.
‘Opaque jurisdictions’, a term that is often preferred instead of the more frequently used ‘tax havens’, compete to attract illicit financial flows of all kinds, with secrecy being one of the most important attractions.
But the problem goes beyond taxes. Secrecy distorts trade and investment flows, and creates an appropriate environment for the flourishing of a set of ills that hurt the citizens of rich and poor countries alike: fraud, tax evasion and avoiding financial regulations, insider trading, embezzlement, wholesale bribery, failure to pay child support, money laundering, tax evasion and more.
The pattern revealed by the FSI also helps explain why the widely publicized international efforts to crack down on tax havens and financial secrecy have had so little effect. It is the OECD countries who benefit from this situation, and who set the rules of the game. This helps explain why, when the G20 said in April 2009 that "the era of banking secrecy was at an end," little or nothing has changed.
The 2011 FSI ranks the "guilty" jurisdictions in order of financial secrecy and provides indicators for global action.
Source: Financialsecrecyindex.com
More on this topic
November 2009
The country's tax authority would be able to access taxpayer's banking accounts.
This modifications are being included in a law project proposed by the Banking Superintendence (SIB) and the Tax Authority (SAT).
"The proposed bill seeks to fight tax evasion and money laundering as well as getting Guatemala out of OECD's tax-haven 'gray-list'", explains Elperiodico.com.gt.
July 2011
After completing twelve agreements to exchange tax information with as many other countries, the OECD has announced that Costa Rica will be excluded from the gray list.
A press release from the Ministry of Finance reads:
COSTA RICA OUT OF THE LIST OF TAX HAVENS
• Bill Compliance Standard on Fiscal Transparency is essential for implementation of international agreements
October 2010
One focuses on banking, with consequences on bank confidentiality and has drawn criticism from various sectors.
Latribuna.hn published, "the former head of the National Commission of Banking and Insurance (CNBS), Gustavo Alfaro, said yesterday that there is confusion regarding the two projects related to fight against tax evasion one submitted by liberal Congressman Jose Simon Azcona Bocock and the other by Deputy Minister of Finance (MOF), Carlos Borja."
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