March 25 (Bloomberg) -- In yet another sign that financial centers are losing each other’s confidence, Geneva bankers are insisting that Gordon Brown, the champion of deregulated markets in London and the British Isles, favors tax cheats at least as much as he says they do.
The British prime minister is calling for curbs on tax evasion and bank secrecy ahead of next week’s Group of 20 summit at the ExCel conference center in the docks near Canary Wharf.
ZURICH, March 17 (Reuters) - Swiss banks should still be able to attract foreign clients currently unnerved by changes to country's rules on banking secrecy, Julius Baer (BAER.VX) chairman Raymond Baer said in a newspaper interview.
"International clients will continue to appreciate the financial privacy traditionally anchored in Switzerland," the chairman of Switzerland's biggest dedicated wealth manager said in an interview for Wednesday's edition of Finanz und Wirtschaft.
Switzerland last week offered to relax strict bank secrecy in some tax evasion cases in a response to a global crackdown on tax havens that has been rattling the offshore banking industry. [ID:nLD122324]
What the Financial Times of London calls "a cascade of concessions on tax secrecy by some of the world’s leading private wealth centers" is being hailed by some as "a breakthrough in a decade-long international assault on tax evasion."
To some degree that may be true, since the pursuit of specific tax evaders by foreign countries will be made easier by greater co-operation from Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Singapore, Liechtenstein, Andorra and others.
In recent days each of these leading offshore jurisdictions has bowed to pressure, announcing that they will adopt international standards on tax information exchange, although they insist they will continue to protect investors’ privacy under their own laws.
March 11 (Bloomberg) -- R. Allen Stanford, clad in jeans and a white polo shirt embroidered with his corporate eagle-shield logo, told employees on Antigua in 2005 that he spent “millions and millions and millions of dollars” on the island “to attract the wealthiest people in the world.”
Potential clients “have to go back literally blown away,” the Texas banker said, according to a video of the meeting provided by Howard Allen, an Antiguan filmmaker who said he was hired to shoot it. Stanford said on the tape that he was upset by opposition to his latest development plans.
The financier, 58, accused by the U.S. of running an $8 billion Ponzi scheme, built Antigua into a marketing showcase for his Stanford Financial Group by lending its government at least 230 million Eastern Caribbean dollars ($85 million) and handing checks to public officials, according to interviews and documents.
ST. HELIER, Jersey: The village-like capital of Jersey features many of the brands typically found in any British town: the Ladbrokes betting shop, the retailer Marks and Spencer and the drugstore Boots.
But step down a side street on this plush island off the French coast and almost every other building bears the name of a private equity, wealth management, or banking firm.
The social security office sits almost exactly opposite BNP Paribas Securities Services, a coincidental symbol of this British crown dependency's reliance on its status as an offshore banking tax haven, a status that scandal elsewhere has dragged into the limelight.
"The bankers have brought a heck of a lot of money to the island," said Michelle Hervieu, a 40-year-old cab driver who has lived in St. Helier all her life.
ST. JOHN'S, Antigua - Having seized control of Robert Allen Stanford's two banks in recent days, Antiguan government officials are now pledging to work closely with American regulators to investigate their offshore banking system, long suspected by federal officials of being a center for laundering money from around the region.
"We are prepared to cooperate fully with the Americans in probing this whole affair," Prime Minister Winston Baldwin Spencer said last week. He added that the scandal "has serious implications" for the offshore banking sector.
That acknowledgment countered statements only two weeks ago by local bank regulators that the financial system in Antigua was absolutely clean. It comes after the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Stanford in a civil complaint of engaging in an $8 billion fraud involving high-yielding certificates of deposit sold by an offshore bank here. Stanford has not been criminally charged.
The bill comes just two days ahead of a Senate hearing where a senior UBS AG executive is due to testify about an investigation of the Swiss banking giant.
"Offshore tax haven and tax shelter abuses are undermining the integrity of our tax system," said Levin in a statement given to Reuters. "We cannot tolerate $100 billion in offshore tax abuses burning a hole through our budget each year.
"We can fight back against secrecy jurisdictions and shut down offshore tax abuses if we have the political will."
Companion legislation is expected to be introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, the aides said.
ZURICH, Feb 27 - Offshore financial centres which have thrived under a veil of bank secrecy will have to embrace transparency to survive a global crackdown on tax cheats that is menacing the private banking sector in Switzerland and beyond.
A U.S. tax fraud probe into UBS AG, the world's largest wealth manager, is showing Washington is serious about chasing tax dodgers at a time when it is desperate for revenue to revive its ailing financial sector.
In Europe, Britain has joined Germany and France in the battle against tax havens and has put the item on the agenda of a Group of 20 nations meeting on April 2, bringing the political debate on tax evasion to unprecedented levels.
"The pressure is on to crack down on offshore centres," said Dermot Butler, chairman of Custom House, which provides onshore and offshore funds. "The long-term effects on the Caribbean, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein is that those who were suspicious of them will be even more so."
EU rules allow UK residents to declare interest earned overseas or to have 15% withheld from interest in the country where the account is held.
Separately, a report says MPs are calling for a review into the use of havens by taxpayer-backed banks.
Under the EU rules, three-quarters of the 15% in tax on interest that is withheld offshore is eventually paid to the UK government.
But this means that the effective amount collected by HM Revenue and Customs was 11.25% - rather than the 40% which would typically be paid, the TUC says.
ZURICH, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Switzerland may have to make some concessions if it does not want to be put on a black list of tax havens, Switzerland's president and finance minister was quoted as saying on Saturday.
Banking secrecy is entrenched in Switzerland, in law and also the mentality of the people, and the country does not want to give it up but "certain matters of fact must be up for debate," Hans-Rudolf Merz said in the country's capital Berne, according to news agency SDA.
"We will perhaps have to make concessions in some cases or others," Merz said, adding that otherwise sanctions could be taken against Swiss banks and the country could be put on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's black list of tax havens.
