26/01/2010

Davos- Welcome to the Real Financial Paradises




Obama's Too Big to Fail plan limits proprietary funds to be invested in the market. This regulation (if voted) will not "de-leverage" the market as some analysts say but create a huge transfer of trading activities from the USA to Tax havens and have the inverse effect since there will be a massive creation of Hedge Funds (Alternative Investment funds) in the Asian and Middle East financial market drove by Star Traders and bankers avoiding hostile Regulations from Europe and USA. This Movement will be expanded with all the Financial regulation going on in France and the UK. (See: France joins UK to target traders in bonus tax move).

THE TRUTH BEHIND TAX HEAVENS

OECD and G20 Unco-operative Tax Heaven meeting was a political joke. Nothing was done, I studied the case when it was still fresh but to make the long story short here is a simplified chronology:

2nd of April 2009: At the London G20 summit "Tax Heavens" were listed in 3 categories: Black, Grey and White: From the beginning we notice that Hong Kong and Macau are not listed at all, thus they are not concerned. Notice United Arab Emirates are directly in the White list. We can also notice the special treatment of Singapore, Switzerland and Luxembourg in the "Others Section". Here the Official Report from the OECD.


7th of April 2009: Less than a week after , tax heavens do not exist any more: Except Costa Rica, Malaysia (Labuan), Philippines & Uruguay(still on the black list), there is no other country in the black list, they all have been listed now as “jurisdictions that have committed to the internationally agreed tax standard, but have not yet substantially implemented”(Grey list).

For the record:

A week later, having found its name on the grey list, Switzerland reportedly announced sanctions against the OECD, namely, blocking some €136,000 it was due to pay the organization. The Swiss also threatened not to pay their annual €6.5 million fee to the OECD and even to block any progress on further cooperation with China, India and other emerging economies....Here is the Source

NOW:
20th January: You can check it yourself where we are with the PROGRESS REPORT by the OECD. Notice yourself from an official report that only few and insignificant countries are under the label "Tax Heaven".

How could this happen?
Without going too much into the details, countries originally in the "grey list" made Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) with each other so they are out of problem.
I though the purpose was to eliminate tax heavens. Now Tax Heavens are a united conglomerate since the banking secrecy is not abolished and now they have to take care of each other's frontiers to ensure their information is not released meaning tightening relations. Here you can find the updated reports and progress.

WHAT IS IMPORTANT
From the very official Tax Information Exchange Agreements, we do not find any agreement made by Switzerland or Luxembourg while they were suppose to do so. Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, Luxembourg and Singapore are just not there.

Conclusion:
- Hong Kong , Singapore, Luxembourg, Switzerland and United Arab Emirates are the Legal Tax Heavens of the G20. To know if a country is a legal tax Heaven, just type it's name on the search bar of this Report. If it's not there, then it is a good place to hide!

- Money has no country, religion or religion whatsoever.

- Any Financial Regulation will make investors, bankers, traders and hedge funds go find a more friendly place: Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates and Luxembourg.

*All OCDE official information about Harmful Tax Practices is public and can be found here.

3 comments:

  1. About Goldman evading the Volcker Rule:
    http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/02/01/can-goldman-dodge-the-volcker-rule/

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. http://www.bloomberg.com/money-gallery/2012-05-31/where-the-world-s-millionaires-live.html#slide16

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