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

Phillip H. Zakas pzakas at toucancapital.com
Fri Jan 12 09:07:41 PST 2001



Just to add an interesting experience to this thread, I've flown to Bermuda
and to the Cayman Islands (not an attractive place, but great diving).  On
the flight to Bermuda the in-flight magazine had several articles discussing
Bermuda's aggressive moves against being a tax haven.  Saw the same kinds of
articles in the magazines while on the beach there.

In stark contrast, the in-flight magazine to the Caymans had several large
advertisements and one govt.-sponsored article promoting the fact that
banking transactions of less than $50,000 (per transaction) are never
reported to law enforcement inquiries unless it has been adquately proven
that the transaction was the result of a drug deal.  Other advertisements
stated the cost of starting a bank (as little as $5K if I remember
correctly) and of starting a private holding company (a little more than
starting your own bank).

Interestingly none of these islands/countries have the SA (societe anonamie
(sp?)) laws of French islands.  An SA company by definition never reveals
the board members, officers, founders, etc.

pz

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-cypherpunks at Algebra.COM
[mailto:owner-cypherpunks at Algebra.COM]On Behalf Of Duncan Frissell
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 11:04 AM
To: cypherpunks at cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Re: As Dot-Coms Go Bust in the U.S., Bermuda Hosts a Little
Boomlet



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.






More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list