A REPORT accusing the global finance industry of denying US$500bn worth of tax from the world’s poorest countries has been slated by P & R.

The Tax Justice Network, which includes former Jersey civil servant John Christensen and States scrutiny panel adviser Richard Murphy, says tax avoidance and capital flight by companies and wealthy residents in poor countries costs them $500bn per year.

They say that the finance industry – the backbone of Jersey’s economy – costs poor countries a sum that dwarfs overseas aid spending and effectively fosters worldwide poverty.

But P & R president Senator Frank Walker has dismissed the report as ‘personally motivated’ and containing nothing new or factual about the Island.

Instead, he pointed to praise by the International Monetary Fund and the Financial Action Task Force for the standard of Jersey’s regulation and said Jersey represented less than one per cent of the international finance industry.