Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

Through an annual dialogue, the Liechtenstein Government has established a high-quality contact platform which brings together personalities from finance, economics, business, politics, science and the media to discuss critically and controversially themes relevant to financial markets.

The Dialogue 2007 will look at the needs of an innovative financial industry and the actions taken by financial centers to meet those needs, as well as the resulting challenges for the regulatory environment in the future. Under the title Navigating change: Success strategies for financial centers, this year’s conference will shed light on three major questions:

The first conference day (4 October 2007) will shed light on the following two major questions:

What are the needs of an innovative financial industry?
Identifying particularly promising businesses and products, and formulating the requirements in terms of regulatory frameworks and government behavior to capitalize on them.
What are financial centers doing to respond?
Showing how successful financial centers have been shaping their environments and regulatory frameworks to become attractive partners to the business community.

The second conference day (5 October 2007) will shed light on the following major question:

What are the challenges for regulators in the future?
Formulating appropriate regulatory reactions in various areas (such as taxation, company law, and market supervision) to greater competition among financial centers and the heightened demands of an innovative, globalized business community.



Lucien Thiel who used to be the General Manager for the Luxembourg Bankers' Association (ABBL) will represent the Luxembourg financial Center . He will take part in the panel discussion on "How can privacy survive in an environment of increasing information exchange?" on Friday, 5 October 2007. The basic objective of the panel is to discuss the (potential) area of conflict between the protection of legitimate privacy rights on the one hand and a comprehensive (cross-border) information exchange on the other hand.

Handouts & Presentations will be published later on this blog when available.



See agenda

Website of The Liechtenstein Dialogue

"Low-Tax Countries Lead The World"
By Jeremy Hetherington-Gore, Tax-News.com, London
Thursday, September 06, 2007

The CIA has recently updated its list of countries ranked by Gross Domestic Product, using figures from 2006, 2005 or 2004, with Luxembourg in the lead, and no fewer than thirteen out of the top twenty countries being low-tax jurisdictions.

Commenting on the list, Dan Mitchell of the Centre for Freedom and Prosperity points out that: "In an ideal world, other nations would emulate the so-called tax havens. Instead, high-tax nations persecute these jurisdictions as part of an effort to create an OPEC for politicians."

Here are the top 20:

1 Luxembourg $ 71,400;
2 Bermuda $ 69,900;
3 Jersey $ 57,000;
4 Equatorial Guinea $ 50,200;
5 United Arab Emirates $ 49,700;
6 Norway $ 46,300;
7 Guernsey $ 44,600;
8 Ireland $ 44,500;
9 United States $ 44,000;
10 Cayman Islands $ 43,800;
11 Andorra $ 38,800;
12 British Virgin Islands $ 38,500;
13 Iceland $ 38,000;
14 Hong Kong $ 37,300;
15 Denmark $ 37,000;
16 Canada $ 35,600;
17 Isle of Man $ 35,000;
18 Austria $ 34,600;
19 San Marino $ 34,100;
20 Switzerland $ 34,000.
A critic might point out that the populations of the 13 leading tax havens all added together wouldn't fill up New York City; but that doesn't dilute the message.

And where are the 19th century's leading nations: Great Britain, France and Germany? Japan is also a surprise exclusion.

Source : Tax News

Know more :
CIA World fact book

In the context of the Stop Tax haven abuse act, an extensive investigation spearheaded by the Manhattan District Attorney's office revealed that Arrigo and Giuseppe Cipriani, and their corporation, Cipriani USA, Inc., filed false corporate tax returns in which they deducted business expenses of more than $30.5 million which they knew had never been paid. Specifically, the defendants admitted that they had deducted "royalty payments" that they claimed Cipriani USA had paid to its parent corporation, Cipriani SA, a Luxembourg corporation owned by defendant Arrigo Giusseppe.

Cipriani USA controls such noted eateries as the Rainbow Room, Harry Cipriani Downtown, Cipriani Dolci at Grand Central Terminal, and Cipriani 42nd Street.

Acting New York State Commissioner of Taxation and Finance Billet said, "This investigation and enforcement should serve as a stark reminder that the State of New York will prosecute all tax offenders, even the powerful and famous, to ensure the fairness of our tax system. We thank DA Morgenthau for his zeal and commitment to assisting us in this mission. International tax cases are notoriously difficult to investigate and prosecute due to the privacy laws which often shield the evidence needed to prove a crime. Only the most dedicated prosecutors will persevere to bring these cases to fruition."

The Department's Revenue Crimes Bureau and the New York City Department of Finance assisted in the investigation.

In its press release, Manhattan District Attorney's underlines that "Records are not easily obtained from secrecy jurisdictions such as Luxembourg"

See press release from District Attorney's Office

See press release from New York State - departmentof Taxation and Finance