Even if you’ve worked for some years trying to prevent the problems caused by tax havens, people will still ask you which places are the best in the world to shield your money from taxes. Working with the Tax Justice Network I set out to provide a definitive answer.
“Best” is, of course, a pretty subjective term, so it needed definition. We used two. The first was a measure of a place’s opacity, or how secret it is. There’s good reason for that. Some time ago I gave up trying to define what a tax haven is, as that proved to be a pretty thankless task. Instead I suggested that unless a place is a secrecy jurisdiction, which means that regulation is intentionally created for the primary benefit and use of those not resident there, it really can’t operate as a tax haven. In effect, secrecy jurisdictions create regulation that is designed to undermine the legislation or regulation of another jurisdiction.
To facilitate its use, secrecy jurisdictions also create a deliberate, legally backed veil of secrecy that shields the identities of those making use of its flexible regulatory system. This is important. Even though people who use secrecy jurisdiction claim their activities are perfectly legal, it seems they don’t want people to find out about them. So secrecy is a key.
Full story: World’s Best Tax Havens – Forbes.com
