Part 14: What God Hath Wrought – The #FATCA Inquisition (Review, Identify and Report on “U.S. Persons”) – FATCA and the rise of @TaxHavenUSA

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The USA as the world’s number one tax haven? Well, FATCA does play a role in making it harder for other countries to operate as tax havens. FATCA most certainly operates to assist the U.S. in preventing competition to the USA in the tax haven industry. As a recent article from the Tax Justice Network notes:

Bloomberg is running a story entitled The World’s Favorite New Tax Haven Is the United States, which closely follows the line that TJN has been taking, particularly since our big Loophole USA blog a year ago, and our subsequent USA Report for the Financial Secrecy Index last October.
Expanding on a quote we used in our USA report and in our more recent call for Europe to apply withholding taxes to counter the new global threat emanating from the United States, Bloomberg cites:
“How ironic—no, how perverse—that the USA, which has been so sanctimonious in its condemnation of Swiss banks, has become the banking secrecy jurisdiction du jour,” wrote Peter A. Cotorceanu, a lawyer at Anaford AG, a Zurich law firm, in a recent legal journal. “That ‘giant sucking sound’ you hear? It is the sound of money rushing to the USA.”
The article is a most useful contribution to the debate. It does quote people spouting the usual claptrap about confidentiality peddled by wealthy wealth-extractors, tax evaders and market riggers:
“Rokahr and other advisers said there is a legitimate need for secrecy. Confidential accounts that hide wealth, whether in the U.S., Switzerland, or elsewhere, protect against kidnappings or extortion in their owners’ home countries.”

You will find the article by Peter A. Cotorceanu here:
Trusts & Trustees-2015-Cotorceanu-tandt_ttv178
See also my complete series: “Tax Haven or Tax Heaven” here.
 
 

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