Jun 30
The fight against tax havens rose with tiny steps
Great absent G20 Toronto, the issue of tax havens coming back in the headlines the case Bettencourt. The conversations between plays Liliane Bettencourt and Patrice de Maistre, the man who manages his vast fortune, revealed the existence of undeclared accounts in Switzerland for a total of some 80 million euros and a small private island lost in the Indian Ocean, estimated between 300 and 500 million euros. A "case study" that illustrates the mechanisms and the persistence of tax evasion.
Despite the political will displayed at the G20 in London in April 2009, chief among which those of Paris, Berlin and Washington, hunting bank secrecy small steps.Like it or not the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who said: "Tax havens, it's over." Certainly, under pressure from the G20, the major financial markets have taken one at a time with the standards of exchange information of the OECD, the risk of being pinned on a blacklist. What this implies for the treasury of the countries referred to respond to requests for information in cases of suspected tax evasion proved.
Hunting opacity
Since then, over 400 bilateral agreements were signed, including between France and Switzerland. The text was adopted on June 18 last, by the Swiss Parliament since Tuesday and is registered in the Official Journal of Switzerland. The entry into force can not be done until after the legal deadline is October 7, allowed the organization of a referendum. French side, the agreement is still not included in the agenda of the Assembly."Will stay then test its effectiveness, said Jean Merckaert, specialist tax fraud CCFD, a development NGO. These past months have shown, lists stolen (HSBC France, UBS in the United States), which allowed the transfer of thousands of names, are more effective than the exchange of information through the conventions. "
General Delegate to the fight against uncooperative jurisdictions, François d'Aubert acknowledged the imperfection of the system, where you just twelve agreements out of the list, which is more that can be signed with other tax havens. "We need the tax administrations of each country can have access to bank accounts, accounting firms and identify the beneficiaries of a trust," he said recently. Like the little corner of paradise in the Seychelles, hidden behind a foundation, the opacity remains the bete noire of the treasury.
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