Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

The OECD is being urged to update the evasion blacklist as only three countries currently remain on the OECD list of tax havens: Liechtenstein, Monaco and Andorra.

As the Financial Times reported, quoting a French Official: "There are some countries which said they would co-operate and which were then removed from the list, but in practice they have not at all".

For instance, in the context of the Liechtenstein scandal, that should inciter to be careful, when

1) officials are bold enough to state that "It is not our duty to control if the tax payer was honest" or "Banking secrecy remains : Luxembourg is not compelled to communicate its clients'data"

2) some bankers agree to facilitate tax evasion from Liechtenstein to Luxembourg.

such center is unfortunately not reliable and trustable anymore: neither for the investor whoever he or she is, nor for organisations like the OECD.

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The PFP has reported that Switzerland's largest bank, UBS, has disclosed that the US Justice Department is investigating whether its bankers helped wealthy Americans evade paying income tax on their investments and that the Zurich-based bank said it was cooperating with both the Justice Department and the SEC.

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US Senators Carl Levin and Barack Obama (Democrats) and Senator Norm Coleman (Republican) have introduced a bill, with the unwieldy title of "Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act" (summary here.) Its declared intention is "to protect the United States from U.S. corporations being misused to commit terrorism, money laundering, tax evasion, or other misconduct."

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TJN

Senator levin's website

Senator Obama's website