Are we seeing the demise of tax havens around the world?
Today's announcement that the US government has brokered a deal with the Swiss government, which will see US government requests for banking data on US national accounts acted upon, could spell the end of tax havens around the world. The last few weeks have seen the UK government and the US government in a pincer movement on various tax havens around the world including Switzerland and Luxembourg in order to try and obtain information about UK and US nationals holding deposits offshore.
When you consider that the UK government is in line for a £500 million tax windfall from these undeclared accounts we can only imagine what the situation must be like in the US. Slowly but surely governments around the world have managed to crack the nut which is the tax havens sector, an area of banking which has been shrouded in mystery and controversy for many years. However, before we start to celebrate the repatriation of various funds around the world we may see more tax havens appear in some of the more far-flung areas of the world.
Where there is a need there will be a service at some point although with some of the more "trusted" tax havens under threat the potential risk to those holding money in less "trustworthy" countries could increase.
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