As Dot-Coms Go Bust in the U.S., Bermuda Hosts a Little Boomlet

[Duncan Frissell]

At 11:29 AM 1/10/01 +0000, Ken Brown wrote:
>One of the interesting, and to my mind odd, things is that they
>*aren't*  "popping up in tax havens around the world". They are popping
>up in little islands that are formally or effectively under British
>colonial rule, if not actually occupied by the British army.

The British colonial possessions discussed in the article are, indeed, tax 
havens and have been described as such by every writer on the topic from 
the flakiest up to the Economist Intelligence Unit 
http://store.eiu.com/description/M727des.asp.

Red Tony's attempt to corral his colonies has been going on for a few years 
now.  The OECD has gotten into the act with its Financial Action Task Force 
(http://www.oecd.org/fatf/) handling Money Laundering and the OECD, itself, 
http://www.oecd.org/daf/fa/harm_tax/harmtax.htm handling what it calls 
"Harmful Tax Practices".  By the latter, it means evil countries that set 
their taxes too low.  It does not mean the harm involved in tax collection 
itself.

The Barbados meeting http://www.oecd.org/media/release/nw00-123a.htm was 
co-sponsored by the Commonwealth (formerly the British Commonwealth).  They 
released a hopeful closing statement of agreement and cooperation 
but  nothing is likely to come of it since the world's largest tax haven 
(the US) is never the subject of these talks.

After watching these activities since shortly after the US government 
started to crack down on trusts back in 1962, I have learned to ignore what 
governments say and watch what they (and the market) actually do.

More important than bank secrecy itself is the ability to easily create 
legal entities.  One of the reason that the US is a popular tax haven (for 
non-US persons) is because it is so easy to create various business and 
personal entities here.

The Net have only made things worse.  With a dozen P2P payment 
intermediaries created in the last 18 months or so and hundreds of online 
securities brokerages, it's rough for the control forces.

DCF

----
"May the Lord enlighten ... the Swiss banks -- that they might uphold 
justice and preserve the integrity of their own laws and the laws of 
confidentiality, trust and basic decency between the banks and their 
clients."  Imelda Marcos' Prayer for the Swiss Banks - Manila - Sunday 25 
February 1996.