 year. But with over 72 tax havens worldwide hosting thousands of banks offering secret accounts, it won't be long before the crooks find another bolt-hole.
More parochially, it's no surprise that football managers and agents insist 'bungs' be funnelled through offshore accounts in order to hide how they rip off the game and keep the cash out of the taxman's grasp.
So why won't governments order a clampdown? Maybe because their fortunes are so entwined with those using the havens.
Several New Labour backers such as steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal claim 'non-domicile' status, enabling them to legally avoid tax on offshore income. The man whose newspapers swing elections, Rupert Murdoch, is famous for slashing his empire's tax bill through a network of offshore companies. The Chancellor's closest business confidant, Sir Ronald Cohen, set up his Apax private equity group through a series of tax havens, notably the Cayman Islands.
Small wonder that five years ago official indifference even saw the Inland Revenue sell
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Bush’s closest backer was
Enron - until offshore chicanery brought about the company’s downfall |
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its offices to a Bermudan company! In the US, Bush's closest backer was Enron - until offshore chicanery brought about the company's downfall. The company boasted 700 subsidiary companies in the Caymans alone.
International talking shops have long paid lip service to the threat posed by tax havens. In 2005, after 14 years of procrastination, the EU brought in a defective tax directive that does little to address the secrecy that fuels corruption and in which clever tax lawyers were quick to spot loopholes. Meanwhile the havens' own authorities, such as they are, remain unable or unwilling to police the trillions flowing through them.
The offshore web is now so huge that only when rich countries refuse to recognise tax haven companies and accounts will the corrupt be unable to hide their murky dealings. But as long as those holding the levers of power are themselves drawn to the islands' fiscal charms, the chances of that remain as remote as Pacific tax haven Vanuatu. 
FIRST POSTED APRIL 17, 2007
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