Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has scheduled a hearing, "Tax Haven Banks and U. S. Tax Compliance," on Thursday, July 17, 2008, at 9:30 a.m., in Room 106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing will examine how financial institutions located in offshore tax havens, including Liechtenstein and Switzerland, may be engaged in banking practices that could facilitate, and in some instances have resulted in, tax evasion and other misconduct by U.S. clients. The hearing will also examine how U.S. domestic and international tax enforcement efforts could be strengthened. The Subcommittee expects to issue a Subcommittee staff report in conjunction with the hearing summarizing its investigative findings.

The witnesses will be :

Witnesses

Panel 1
THE HONORABLE DOUGLAS H. SHULMAN , Commissioner , Internal Revenue Service , Washington, D.C.
THE HONORABLE KEVIN O’CONNOR , Associate Attorney General , U. S. Department of Justice , Washington, D.C.

Panel 2
MR. SHANNON MARSH , Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
MR. WILLIAM WU , Forest Hills, New York
MR. PETER S. LOWY , Beverly Hills, California
MR. STEVEN GREENFIELD , New York, New York


Panel 3
MR. MARTIN LIECHTI , Head, UBS Wealth Management Americas , Zurich, Switzerland


Panel 4
MR. MARK BRANSON , Chief Financial Officer , UBS Global Wealth Management and Business Banking , Zurich, Switzerland
REPRESENTATIVE , LGT Group , Vaduz, Liechtenstein


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the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to integrate the offshore financial center (OFC) assessment program with the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP).
This integration aims to (i) facilitate a more uniform and risk-based approach to financial sector surveillance and improve coordination of Fund analysis across jurisdictions; (ii) provide for a better allocation of Fund resources, with a specific focus on the small number of OFCs that account for the overwhelming volume of offshore activity and could be expected to pose major financial system risks; and (iii) eliminate the need to maintain a potentially discriminatory list of OFC jurisdictions.


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At its 38th Plenary Meeting (Strasbourg, 9 – 13 June 2008), GRECO adopted the Addenda to the Second Round Compliance Reports on Finland (public), Luxembourg, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia. An evaluation report becomes public once the authorities of the country concerned express their agreement to the lifting of the report's confidentiality. For the first time Luxembourg did not authorised the publication of its report.

The previous report dated 12 May 2006 concluded that has implemented satisfactorily. or satisfactorily dealt with less than one-quarter of the recommendations. In 2006 the OECD used the same wording to conclude on deficiencies in Luxembourg.

Luxembourg probably did not appreciate the OECD report that was published earlier this year.

Because of the "system", it is difficult to implement recommendations to prevent daily corrupution.


See list of reports