Sheppard on Shaxson Book on Tax and Regulatory Havens (6/11/11)

Tax gadfly Lee Sheppard reviews a new book on Tax Havens by Nicholas Shaxson, Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). See Lee A. Sheppard, A Tax Haven by Any Other Name, 131 Tax Notes 1111 (June 13, 2011). The review and the book are both worth reading for those interested in this area. Sheppard and Shaxson note that the tax havens not serve as tax havens but also regulation havens where risky and often criminal financial behavior can go unregulated.

Some interesting comments from Sheppard's review:

The Tax Justice Network's Financial Secrecy Index ranked the United States as the world's principal secrecy jurisdiction, based on how secretive it is in global finance relative to the services offered. Luxembourg was second, Switzerland third, and the Cayman Islands fourth. The United Kingdom ranked fifth, based on mainland transparency, despite its haven spider web.

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