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Latest update: 23/10/2008
- economy - financial crisis - taxes
Should tax havens be banned?
The France 24 debate focuses on tax havens. How far should Europe go to limit or even terminate their existence of? (part 1/2)
Click here to watch part 2 of the debate
How far should Europe go to limit or even terminate the existence of tax havens?
If it were up to countries like France and Germany, Europe would go all the way - beginning with adding what they have labled uncooperative countries like Switzerland and Luxembourg to a blacklist and issuing punishment for maintaining tax haven status and banking secrecy laws.
Britain and several other leading economies have backed the call. Were they right to do so? Are tax havens to blame for part of the current global financial crisis? Do tax haven countries have an unfair, arguably illegal economic advantage over their non-haven counterparts?
Or are they being used as a scapegoat for financial leaders who are at a loss to control their own struggling economies?
Andrea Sanke's guests are :
Jean Merkaert, advocacy officer on financing for development, CCFD, the Catholic Committee against Hunger and for development.
Daniel Mitchell, senior fellow at the CATO Institute.
Andreas Missbach, head of the Private Finance Program for the Berne Declaration.
Alex Cobham, an econometrician at Oxford University with the Oxford council of good governance.
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(2) Reactions
CATO Institute - Cheerleaders for corruption & greed
Daniel Mitchell of the CATO Insitute is one of the Bush regimes cheerleaders for the corrupt & greedy financial excesses which have caused the current crisis. Its only when people like Mitchell are held to account that we will see some stabilitiy in the markets. As long as their poisonous dogma is given creedence by the government & its media lackeys we will not see an end to chaos & depression
Good work
I think it's excellent that france24 brings this debate to the public eye especially in the light of the current financial crisis.
The only people who benefit from tax havens like Jersey are the super rich - everyone else loses. Tax havens encourage and protect corrupt regimes as well as being blatantly antidemocratic and corrupt regimes in themselves. Their whole basis is in secrecy and greed.
I was appalled by the arrogance of Daniel Mitchell who describes tax flight as beneficial and suggests that the French, who democratically choose high taxes, are suffering because of it. France is a strong European economic power directly because of the good relationship between citizen and state, which is maintained through effective taxation.
The fact is that taxes pay for things we need, like schools, roads, and hospitals. Jobs and progress are simply not created by lowering taxes, they are created by an educated and healthy workforce that can rely on the infrastructure their government provides.
Money that is hidden in tax havens is money that is unregulated. I believe the lack of transparency and regulation not only allows but leads to the kind of financial messes such as the one the world is in now.
It is the dogma of permissiveness and of tax havens that got us into this mess. It takes a crisis to wake people up to the facts about tax havens.
Closing down the tax havens right now would provide more than enough liquidity for the world economy to get out of trouble. We are talking trillions of dollars.
It is time for the tax havens to go. They have no place in the modern world's economy.