As Pressure Mounts, Tax Havens Prepare Concessions

The Black-listed Andorra and Liechtenstein tax havens mentioned last Thursday that they were finally able to relax their very strict rules on bank secrecy because of the impending global crackdown. This might end up forcing the top offshore bank of Switzerland to finally open up. Such a move comes from the fact that there were finance ministers representing the G20 group of emerging and developed countries who are preparing for a meeting in Britain one Friday before the London summit on April 2. They were all expected to think of ways to fight off the offshore tax evasion situation. There were also some additional offshore centers that had thriving bank industries because of the many privacy laws. These laws ended up attracting foreign wealth and have then made their own concessions the past couple of weeks. Because of the crisis, the cash-strapped western governments are now more aggressive when it comes to these tax evaders.

Plans to Comply with the Rules

This small Alpine principality in the Liechtenstein region also mentioned last Thursday that it planned to comply with the international tax as well as data sharing kind of standards set up by the OECD or the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. This is done by bypassing the neighboring country of Switzerland in order to get more transparency in taxes. The Crown Prince Alois von und zu Liechtenstein also mentioned that he is pretty sure the country of Switzerland will soon make the same steps sometime in the future.  The bank secrecy that is agreed upon between the areas of France and Spain also mentioned by Andorra last Thursday that it will relax it in order to be removed from the OECD blacklist. It will be sometime in November that they will get to pass such a law.

More Pressure on the Swiss to Act Accordingly

As the biggest offshore bank center in the world, Switzerland has around two trillion worth of assets  and are now under the pressure coming from a United States tax fraud team of investigation led by the company UBS in servicing wealthy United States clients. Their country is also thinking of making a revision of all its banking secrecy laws. It also decided to set up their own committee of seasoned experts who will come forward with some good proposals on the international tax cooperation before the G20 meeting. It will also start discussing the same topic sometime in Friday. When asked about the Liechtenstein move, the Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf also mentioned to Swiss television last Thursday that their government is busy working on the review of these bank secrecy rules. They also said that they will soon present their ideas about this matter.