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Investment International blog | 9
A Taxing
Fundamentalism
Offshore financial centres are not an
appropriate target for the Government,
argues the Chief Executive of Jersey
Finance
by Geoff Cook
M
any commentators have broadly in the same position as those
observed that the April G20 who had made recent promises on
London summit delivered transparency and disclosure.
more form than substance, Months of speculation and intense
but at least achieved a con- debate regarding the future of
sensus. Obama clearly International Finance Centres are at
excelled at playing the role of mediator; criti- an end.
cally with China. Sarkozy and Merkel will feel We have the cooperative,
they have secured a commitment to tough reg- respectable, transparent and well reg-
ulation, and Brown may well have seen the ulated group; the Premier League;
event as the pinnacle of his political career. and then the two other divisions;
The measures agreed were $500bn for the league division one, who now aspire
IMF to lend to struggling economies, $250bn to join the top flight, currently on a
to boost world trade, $250bn for a new IMF yellow card, and league division two,
“overdraft facility” which countries can draw summarily shown the red card by the
on, $100bn for international development G20 referees; the Financial Stability
banks to lend to the poorest nations, and the Forum and the OECD.
IMF will raise a further $6bn from selling gold So, Jersey and other cooperative,
reserves to increase lending for the poorest transparent and well regulated cen-
countries. Only time will tell if it is enough. tres can now rest easy. The ‘Tax
The key outcome from the summit for Jersey Haven’ question is settled……………or is it? who shares in it. The arguments are as old as
was a pleasing, but arguably overdue recogni- If the debate were simply about transparency time, but have lost none of their potency in
tion from the G20 nations of its high standards and disclosure then centres such as Jersey exposing societal fault lines.
of regulation and transparency, through inclu- would have nothing to worry about. But it is In feudal and agrarian societies over the cen-
sion in the top tier of countries. not. turies landowners and the nobility held the real
Some who had given, but not delivered on The real issue underpinning this whole wealth. This all changed when the industrial
commitments, will feel aggrieved; especially as debate is not in fact transparency, but tax; who revolution liberated the means of wealth cre-
the political weight of the Chinese ensured no collects it and how. It is also about wealth, who ation whilst the French revolution wrested it
listing for their satellite centres, despite being creates it, who enjoys it, who controls it, and from the grasp of the aristocracy.
www.investmentinternational.com May 2009 Investment International
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