Tag Archive for CRS

How The World Should Respond To The US FATCA Driven Attack On The Tax Base Of Other Countries

How The World Should Respond To The US FATCA Driven Attack On The Tax Base Of Other Countries

This purpose of this post is to continue the general theme of focusing on the difference between what a law says and what the law means in application and effect. Yesterday’s post (The Pandora Papers, FATCA, CRS And How They Have Combined To Create Tax Haven USA) focused on the role that the 2010 US FACTCA law played in in facilitating the rise of Tax Haven USA. (To be clear, I am not saying that FATCA was the sole cause.) That said, the unwillingness of the USA to sign the CRS (“Common Reporting Standard”) has also played a role in the growth of the US as a tax haven.

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Written by | Posted in FATCA • Tax Havens

The Pandora Papers, FATCA, CRS And How They Have Combined To Create Tax Haven USA

JOHN RICHARDSON

Introduction

While millions of people are obsessed with taxation there are apparently people who may (but who knows) wish to simply opt out of the discussion.

https://twitter.com/crenshawpunch66/status/1444787814915186688

I am becoming less and less interested in the intricacies of taxation. At its core the principles of tax are really pretty simple. Tax laws exist for two purposes: (1) To redistribute assets from one person to another person (with the government taking an administrative cut along the way) and (2) to punish (sin taxes) or reward (buying a fuel efficient car) certain kinds of behaviour. Certain cultures are more tax obsessed than others. When it comes to obsession over taxation the USA is certainly a world leader. In fact, what started out as US “citizenship-based taxation” more than one hundred years ago, has created a culture of “Taxation-based citizenship” (Yes, they are different concepts).

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Written by | Posted in Tax Havens • Trusts

Commentary on the The Panama Papers & The Disclosure of 14,000 Clients’ 214,000 Offshore Companies Files and Assets

A leak of searchable 11.5 million files, that’s 2.6 terabytes of data, from the embattled offshore services provider Mossack Fonseca. Every email, client note, asset and income statement, instruction, communication, .. since 1977!  2.6 terabytes of data, 11.5 million files, is a lot of files and scanned documents to comb through, so this leak is potentially, and probably, more significant than the 2014 ICIJ reported on leak or even the HSBC and UBS’ leaks. Read More

Written by | Posted in BEPS • FATCA • OVDP

47 Countries Declare GATCA Adoption

GATCA Declaration

47 countries and major financial centers on May 6, 2014 declared am automatic exchange of information between their jurisdictions, announced the OECD.  All 34 OECD member countries, as well as Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and South Africa endorsed the Declaration on Automatic Exchange of Information in Tax Matters that was released at the May 6-7, 2014 Meeting of the OECD at a Ministerial Level.

The Declaration commits countries to implement a new single global standard on automatic exchange of information (“GATCA”).  The OECD stated that it will deliver a Read More

Written by | Posted in FATCA • International • OECD