Posts
Tax havens – the Caribbean, Panama, Singapore, and other dodgy places in
Asia and the Americas like Nevada and Delaware, right?
Up to a point, Lord Copper.
Three of the largest are in the EU; Austria, and the Netherlands are tainted, but the largest of all, not just in Europe but in the world, is Luxembourg, a mini-state with a smaller population than Bristol. It is the second largest banking centre in Europe. It houses most world banking institutions. It has no less than 150 banks from 27 countries .
It has the largest population off expats in the EU, presumably staffing PWC and other financial advisors. There are dozens of mail boxes, empty and unlocked because there are so many foreign companies that are no more than brass plates. There are almost no employees in these off-shore ‘tax efficient vehicles’. There are 140 international companies including multi-billion dollar conglomerates which save billions of dollars on their tax bills by having tax-residency in Luxembourg. There are 40,000 registered companies, one for every eight people.
Its economy is almost totally dependent on tax dodgers who eagerly snatch up the deep discounts on the country’s corporate tax rate offered by the Government.
Mutual funds in Luxembourg exceed $3 trillion, and household-names such as Pepsi, Ikea, Accenture, Burberry, Procter & Gamble, Heinz, JP Morgan, FedEx, drugs group Abbott Laboratories, Shire, Amazon, Deutsche Bank, Dyson and Australian financial group Macquarie are tax-resident.
So who was the mastermind behind the creation of this financial titan which has made a tiny enclave one of the richest places in the world?
Step forward, Jean-Claude ‘thirsty’ Juncker, mighty President of the European Commission.
Between 1989 and 2013, he was successively Finance Minister and
Prime Minister when it was all put together.
He has form.
Part of his responsibility was SREL,
the security outfit. During his tenure, there was a major scandal that revolved
around the illegal bugging of politicians, purchase of cars for
private use and allegations of taking payments and favours in exchange for
access to officials.
There was
an inquiry, which heard from witnesses who alleged that SREL had
conducted six or seven illegal wiretapping operations between 2007 and 2009, as
well as covert operations in Iraq, Cuba and Libya.
The report
of the inquiry concluded that Juncker held political responsibility for SREL's
activities, that he had been deficient in his control over the service and that
he had failed to report all of the service's irregularities to the inquiry
commission.
His main
line of defence appears to have been that he ‘didn’t know’ ! Well, he would say
that, wouldn’t he, but here it was a case of ‘with one bound Jacques was free!’
Now there is an EU Parliamentary Inquiry into the tax scams.
It is not getting very far. Juncker is back on his favourite line of defence; once again he ‘didn’t know’. He has been ducking and diving during the inquiry’s sessions, filibustering when called upon to speak, and being extremely reluctant to release key documents
Juncker pretends to have been at the forefront of the fight for tax justice in Europe. This is absolutely ridiculous given his 20 years at the helm of one of Europe's most prominent tax havens and an utter mockery of every honest taxpayer on the continent.
"His principle today was that he did not take any decisions on tax
matters in Luxembourg in the past, and does not take decisions in the
Commission at the moment either. His assertions of never having met a single
tax advisory firm during his tenure or never having talked about tax during, as
he admits, regular meetings with Luxembourg bankers sound like they are from
another planet," said MEP Fabio De Masi.
No comments:
Post a Comment