Singapore - haven for money and fugitives
Singapore will be added to the OECD’s list of non-cooperative tax centers (money haven) by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The OECD estimates that Singapore has 370 billion dollars in money haven deposits.
Singapore is not just a haven for money launderers and tax cheats; it is an extradition-free country for crooks from nearby countries.
Singapore avoids extradition treaties with its neighboring countries, so that regional crooks can flee to Singapore - bringing their money.
The fact that Singapore does not extradite from its neighbors is illustrated by Singapore’s famous bond trader Nick Leeson whose US$1.3 billion loses caused the collapse of Barings Bank. To avoid prosecution, Leeson and his wife decided to flee Singapore.
Image of Rogue Trader
Image of Rogue Trader: How I Brought Down Barings Bank and Shook the Financial World
Image of Rogue Trader
They left their luxury Singapore apartment on Friday, February 1995, crossed the border into Malaysia and checked into a hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Twelve hours later, the Leesons traveled to Kota Kinabalu, a Malaysian resort 750 miles northeast of Singapore, where they enjoyed themselves until Wednesday.
On Wednesday morning they flew to Brunei. There, they spent the day in the airport’s departure lounge, and that evening boarded Royal Brunei Airlines Flight 535 for Frankfurt.
The Leesons were at large, and tracked by Singapore for five full days in Malaysia and Brunei - neighboring countries. No attempt was made by Singapore to extradite Nick Leeson, until he reached Frankfurt, Germany.
Indonesian Defense Minister Sudarsono accused Singapore this year of not signing an extradition pact with Indonesia for fear it would be obliged to return money stashed away by corrupt fugitives who had fled to Singapore.
“Singapore doesn’t want this extradition arrangement because it would have to return money from corrupt individuals who ran from Indonesia, along with the hot money it gets from other countries,” Sudarsono said. He estimated there were 80 Indonesian fugitives living in Singapore. When he met with Singapore’s senior minister Lee Kuan Yew in Jakarta last year, the city state’s founder stated that it did not make any sense to return the money.
When questioned about the extradition treaty with Indonesia, Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said, “We set aside the issues for the time being.” George Yeo recently visited Washington, where he was honored by Hillary Clinton.
Indonesian billionaire fugitive, Liem Tek Siong, alias Sjamsul Nursalim, alias Liem Tjoen Ho, Liem now lives happily in Singapore. Liem owes US$2.8 billion due to the collapse of his Indonesian bank.
Free in Singapore, Liem is heavy into the country’s real estate business with the help of Singapore lawyer, Helen Yeo (the wife of disgraced former Singapore cabinet member, Yeo Cheow Tong).
Another person considering asylum in Singapore is Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. On a recent visit to Singapore, Mugabe’s bodyguards roughed up Fredrik Schulte, a member of Sweden’s parliament. Mugabe was afraid that he might have caught in a photographed taken by Shulte.
Singapore is not just a money haven - it is a host to some of the world’s top fugitives.
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Showing posts with label tax haven. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tax haven. Show all posts
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Hell of Tax Havens
The Hell of Tax Havens
Michel Morkos Al-Hayat - 21/04/09//
Are tax havens responsible for the world economic crisis and the proliferating high risk money instruments? Or are they just loopholes through which taxpayers keep their money instead of pumping them into state treasuries?
Early April, the G20 leaders agreed during the London summit on a series of stringent decisions to curb these tax havens. But their goal was not to lift and weaken banking secrecy as much as it was to seize financial resources that would give the needed leverage to high expenditure economic stimulus plans.
Every accused country was apparently complying with the lifting of bank secrecy, within specific conditions that require legally proving incidences of tax evasion. Anything other than that remains within the banking standards in anti laundering measures against the proceeds derived from crime and smuggling.
In the opinion of the American expert Raymond Baker, tax havens get 5% of their resources from crime proceeds, 30% from corruption, while the remaining percentage comes from embezzlement, fraud and tax evasion. Hence, tax havens are not only open to outlaws and mafia gangs, but also to the elite and highly educated customers. Among them are the multinational high-income people who refuse to pay their due taxes and prefer that senior wage earners in their companies do so instead. From this standpoint, tax havens have been considered as tools that helped globalization in the expansion of inequality.
These havens, as experts estimate, incur every year around a billion dollars in lost tax revenues in Europe, or up to ten percent of all tax revenues. This is while these countries need to redress their budget deficits with at least a 3 % margin.
As a matter of fact, the rich resort to tax havens as a means to mask their income, whether it comes from wages or investments. To this end, they either settle into such havens or establish fake companies, where they keep their surplus income and revenues. They can also use them to keep the gains from matches or avoid paying inheritance taxes and alimony in case of divorce.
According to some reports, major international banks are the most prominent customers of tax havens, driven by their own interests, for tax purposes, or to offer services to their wealthy clients and institutions. Multinational corporations have also used tax havens in order to establish overseas branches investing in various parts of the world, or to intensify the low-tax high-profit intellectual property protection instruments - while branches in the countries of destination countries pay higher taxes. Companies also use tax havens as a means to hide actual figures from investors and to manipulate their budgets and statements of accounts.
Meanwhile, the OECD estimates that the 116-square-kilometer Jersey island attracts 500 billion dollars in assets of approximately 32 thousand companies, whose accounts are mostly mail boxes. Switzerland attracts 1,500 billion dollars, compared with 1,300 billion dollars for Britain, 740 billion dollars for Luxemburg, 670 billion dollars for the Caribbean and Central America, 370 billion dollars for Singapore, 370 billion dollars for the United States and 150 billion dollars for Hong Kong.
These tax havens seemed to be easy targets to save money. The massive aids to troubled banks, and the plans to cushion the impact of the financial crisis on economy and employment, all blow the budget deficits. For these reasons, the idea of recovering lost taxes appealed to the summit leaders.
This rush to monitor off shore financial centres is justified by the argument that they allow key financial players the full liberty to develop high risk insane and diversified activities and speculations. These havens did not cause the subprime mortgage crisis in America, but played a role that until now remained widely underestimated. A report by the Government Accountability Office in the U.S shows that part of the virtual offshore banking system was established by American banks in the Cayman Islands, in order for these offshore banks to promote on the behalf of American banks complex money bonds, something that was the basis of the multidimensional crisis.
Whether it is about the failure of the British Northern Rock bank, the American Bear Stearns, the German Hypo Real Estate, the Icelandic banks, or the embezzlements by Bernard Madoff or Sir Allen Stanford, the main events of this crisis definitely pass through tax havens. For this reason, the decision to reorder these offshore centres came as a necessary condition to ensure effective reshuffling of the world monetary system.
However, the attack on safe havens does not put an end to the perversions of financial globalization, despite the stringent measures taken by central banks, which are now ready to monitor the mechanisms adopted when tackling risks, and to cater for the highly diversified money instruments.
The American Secretary of Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, said: "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society. Too many individuals, however, want the civilization at a discount."
Will the world's public finances regain what they lost to tax havens?
http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=27727.1
Michel Morkos Al-Hayat - 21/04/09//
Are tax havens responsible for the world economic crisis and the proliferating high risk money instruments? Or are they just loopholes through which taxpayers keep their money instead of pumping them into state treasuries?
Early April, the G20 leaders agreed during the London summit on a series of stringent decisions to curb these tax havens. But their goal was not to lift and weaken banking secrecy as much as it was to seize financial resources that would give the needed leverage to high expenditure economic stimulus plans.
Every accused country was apparently complying with the lifting of bank secrecy, within specific conditions that require legally proving incidences of tax evasion. Anything other than that remains within the banking standards in anti laundering measures against the proceeds derived from crime and smuggling.
In the opinion of the American expert Raymond Baker, tax havens get 5% of their resources from crime proceeds, 30% from corruption, while the remaining percentage comes from embezzlement, fraud and tax evasion. Hence, tax havens are not only open to outlaws and mafia gangs, but also to the elite and highly educated customers. Among them are the multinational high-income people who refuse to pay their due taxes and prefer that senior wage earners in their companies do so instead. From this standpoint, tax havens have been considered as tools that helped globalization in the expansion of inequality.
These havens, as experts estimate, incur every year around a billion dollars in lost tax revenues in Europe, or up to ten percent of all tax revenues. This is while these countries need to redress their budget deficits with at least a 3 % margin.
As a matter of fact, the rich resort to tax havens as a means to mask their income, whether it comes from wages or investments. To this end, they either settle into such havens or establish fake companies, where they keep their surplus income and revenues. They can also use them to keep the gains from matches or avoid paying inheritance taxes and alimony in case of divorce.
According to some reports, major international banks are the most prominent customers of tax havens, driven by their own interests, for tax purposes, or to offer services to their wealthy clients and institutions. Multinational corporations have also used tax havens in order to establish overseas branches investing in various parts of the world, or to intensify the low-tax high-profit intellectual property protection instruments - while branches in the countries of destination countries pay higher taxes. Companies also use tax havens as a means to hide actual figures from investors and to manipulate their budgets and statements of accounts.
Meanwhile, the OECD estimates that the 116-square-kilometer Jersey island attracts 500 billion dollars in assets of approximately 32 thousand companies, whose accounts are mostly mail boxes. Switzerland attracts 1,500 billion dollars, compared with 1,300 billion dollars for Britain, 740 billion dollars for Luxemburg, 670 billion dollars for the Caribbean and Central America, 370 billion dollars for Singapore, 370 billion dollars for the United States and 150 billion dollars for Hong Kong.
These tax havens seemed to be easy targets to save money. The massive aids to troubled banks, and the plans to cushion the impact of the financial crisis on economy and employment, all blow the budget deficits. For these reasons, the idea of recovering lost taxes appealed to the summit leaders.
This rush to monitor off shore financial centres is justified by the argument that they allow key financial players the full liberty to develop high risk insane and diversified activities and speculations. These havens did not cause the subprime mortgage crisis in America, but played a role that until now remained widely underestimated. A report by the Government Accountability Office in the U.S shows that part of the virtual offshore banking system was established by American banks in the Cayman Islands, in order for these offshore banks to promote on the behalf of American banks complex money bonds, something that was the basis of the multidimensional crisis.
Whether it is about the failure of the British Northern Rock bank, the American Bear Stearns, the German Hypo Real Estate, the Icelandic banks, or the embezzlements by Bernard Madoff or Sir Allen Stanford, the main events of this crisis definitely pass through tax havens. For this reason, the decision to reorder these offshore centres came as a necessary condition to ensure effective reshuffling of the world monetary system.
However, the attack on safe havens does not put an end to the perversions of financial globalization, despite the stringent measures taken by central banks, which are now ready to monitor the mechanisms adopted when tackling risks, and to cater for the highly diversified money instruments.
The American Secretary of Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, said: "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society. Too many individuals, however, want the civilization at a discount."
Will the world's public finances regain what they lost to tax havens?
http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=27727.1
Friday, March 27, 2009
Singapore among nations on tax havens “blacklist”?
Singapore among nations on tax havens “blacklist”? No such list, says OECD
Friday, 27 March 2009
Darren Boon
In response to a media enquiry from The Online Citizen, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has dispelled talk of a blacklist of non-cooperative tax centres. There had been speculation that Singapore was among one of the countries on the list.
Mr Nicolas Bray, Head of Media and Public Affairs & Communications of the OECD, told The Online Citizen: “There is no new ‘OECD list’ of tax havens and we are not quoting any specific number of tax havens.”
In the OECD’s “2007 Offshore Tax Evasion: The Role of Exchange of Information” report, it warned of the directing of tax evasion from one country to that of an offshore centre such as Singapore.
The report had stated that Singapore has “used the fact that it is not on the OECD list of tax havens and has restrictive exchange of information provisions in its tax treaties to market itself as the ultimate secrecy jurisdiction”.
It cautioned that such secrecy jurisdictions may facilitate tax evasion by other countries’ residents.
A list of uncooperative tax havens does exist although it dates back to 2005. There are currently three countries on the list – Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco.
Mr Bray clarified that the list media reports had referred to was actually an information table that provides information on jurisdictions that currently do not conform to the internationally agreed standards of transparency and information.
Mr Bray also stated that other jurisdictions are also on the table in addition to Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco although he added that while some jurisdictions have signalled their intention to change, some had not made any formal announcement.
He did not, however, dispel the future possibility of a “blacklist”. “The information that was provided by the OECD to the G-20 and the various announcements that have been made will be taken into account,” Mr Bray explained. He was referring to countries and jurisdictions that currently do not make available banking information for tax purposes. This contravenes international standards established between the OECD and other countries, and approved by G-20 finance ministers and a relevant UN committee. “The G-20 governments will decide what they wish to do regarding any possible lists,” Mr Bray said.
“The information that I refer to is a snapshot of the present – where intentions have not yet been transformed into reality,” My Bray added.
The G-20, made up of a group of major industrialised countries, will examine a proposal to blacklist certain countries at a summit meeting in London on April 2.
Meanwhile, the OECD has welcomed Singapore’s moves to endorse the OECD’s standard of exchange of information by dismantling domestic hurdles to information exchange.
The Online Citizen is currently awaiting a response from the Ministry of Finance on this matter.
http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=25189.1
Friday, 27 March 2009
Darren Boon
In response to a media enquiry from The Online Citizen, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has dispelled talk of a blacklist of non-cooperative tax centres. There had been speculation that Singapore was among one of the countries on the list.
Mr Nicolas Bray, Head of Media and Public Affairs & Communications of the OECD, told The Online Citizen: “There is no new ‘OECD list’ of tax havens and we are not quoting any specific number of tax havens.”
In the OECD’s “2007 Offshore Tax Evasion: The Role of Exchange of Information” report, it warned of the directing of tax evasion from one country to that of an offshore centre such as Singapore.
The report had stated that Singapore has “used the fact that it is not on the OECD list of tax havens and has restrictive exchange of information provisions in its tax treaties to market itself as the ultimate secrecy jurisdiction”.
It cautioned that such secrecy jurisdictions may facilitate tax evasion by other countries’ residents.
A list of uncooperative tax havens does exist although it dates back to 2005. There are currently three countries on the list – Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco.
Mr Bray clarified that the list media reports had referred to was actually an information table that provides information on jurisdictions that currently do not conform to the internationally agreed standards of transparency and information.
Mr Bray also stated that other jurisdictions are also on the table in addition to Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco although he added that while some jurisdictions have signalled their intention to change, some had not made any formal announcement.
He did not, however, dispel the future possibility of a “blacklist”. “The information that was provided by the OECD to the G-20 and the various announcements that have been made will be taken into account,” Mr Bray explained. He was referring to countries and jurisdictions that currently do not make available banking information for tax purposes. This contravenes international standards established between the OECD and other countries, and approved by G-20 finance ministers and a relevant UN committee. “The G-20 governments will decide what they wish to do regarding any possible lists,” Mr Bray said.
“The information that I refer to is a snapshot of the present – where intentions have not yet been transformed into reality,” My Bray added.
The G-20, made up of a group of major industrialised countries, will examine a proposal to blacklist certain countries at a summit meeting in London on April 2.
Meanwhile, the OECD has welcomed Singapore’s moves to endorse the OECD’s standard of exchange of information by dismantling domestic hurdles to information exchange.
The Online Citizen is currently awaiting a response from the Ministry of Finance on this matter.
http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=25189.1
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