Anxious eyes on Obama
Thursday 6th November 2008, 3:01PM GMT.
SENIOR finance industry figures are keeping a close eye on developments in America amid concern that Barack Obama may act on his threat to ‘shut down’ offshore jurisdictions.
Stephen Platt, the chairman of local law firm BakerPlatt and an international finance expert, said that the Illinois senator’s accession to the White House could make life very difficult for offshore centres like Jersey. And he warned that his victory should set ‘alarm bells ringing’.
Geoff Cook, chief executive of Jersey Finance, said that he was ‘apprehensive’. During his campaign, Obama said: ‘I shall shut down those offshore tax havens and corporate loopholes as President, because you shouldn’t have to pay higher taxes because some big corporations cut corners to avoid paying theirs.’
He was speaking in support of the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, a bill that names Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man as ‘offshore secrecy jurisdictions’ which have helped American citizens and businesses evade US tax. It proposes to take very tough action against such jurisdictions and those who use them.
Read the full story in the Jersey Evening Post.
Click here for subscription details.
Individual editions are also available online.
2012 CYCLE SLAM
Dallaglio Flintoff 2012 Cycle Slam
Read Graeme Le Saux's daily blogs
Greece-London Marathon on a Bike
The Dallaglio Flintoff 2012 Cycle Slam
Travel
To, from and around the Island
Airport Arrivals/Departures
Harbours Arrivals/Departures
Bus Information/Timetables
This is Jersey
Jersey Evening Post
Useful links
I have every sympathy with Obama’s viewpoint. Why should income earned in a particular country be exempt from being taxed in that country.
It’s a shame that Jersey politicians and civil servants have engineered the Island’s near total dependency on the finance industry. We are very vulnerable and .will pay dearly for this in the end.
The clamp down on tax-havens is inevitable. If our ruling elite really had the interest of our island’s future at heart they would be doing more to extract our economy from the finance industry sraight jacket. I don’t hold out much hope…they are the ones that put us into it and they haven’t finsihed doing up the buckles. Greed breeds and power corrupts the mind.
Report abuse
Timber !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Report abuse
Jersey may face some difficulty due to Obama and his determination to halt the use of the island as an offshore tax haven.
But how much American money is here? I would have thought that the Caribbean states would have been far more useful to the American market as they are geographically closer and more in the same time zone.
Obama is young and seems to have a lot of determination and energy to tackle the American financial crisis and climate change which I would estimate as being a huge threat to the world economy and hence the island’s future.
Would Steve Platt and Geoff Cook really have preferred another four years of drift and Bush type business as usual under McCain?
Report abuse
Another ignorant American without a clue of what he is talking about. If the money invested thru the 3 Islands, and indeed the “US Offshore Islands” Cayman and Bahamas amongst others withdrew their money from the likes of London, the city would slump into a major recession, as a significant amount of residential London is owned by non-dom residents through offshore structures for which tax returns are filed and tax paid on the UK source income that arises as a result.
In addition there is a vast amount of the funds held in these “structures” that is also invested, and as a result this puts money back into the economy through investment and generates wealth by creating jobs etc along the line.
So to cut back on “tax havens” is an ignorant statement at best as on this front he would be cutting his nose off to spite his face, or perhaps he is like all other politicians. He has told the American people what he wants them to hear to get elceted, and will now show his true colours by sinking the world eceonomy into an unrecoverable slump!
Report abuse
Bakerplatt “who”?
There is without a doubt far to much scaremongering going on at the moment with little to substansiate it.
Report abuse
Oh joy. Hopeychangey’s going to wreck the island. Still, it was a good run, right?
Right?
Report abuse
The world’s governments have just had to fork out trillions to rescue arrogant idiot bankers from the catastrophic mess their delusions of grandeur have created. Strapped for cash now and desperate to claw some back from somewhere, the governments of the world will be looking at little anachronisms like Jersey and saying ‘why do we let these bankers have this money? It’s ours. We want it back’. Have I got this wrong? And who painted themselves into this corner?
Report abuse
Phil,
It’s almost as if you want Jersey to crumble ‘The clampdown on tax havens is inevitable’ and ‘I dont hold out much hope’. It saddens me to see the doom mongers jumping on the bandwagon and telling us the end is nigh. Maybe if they educated themselves a little more with actual facts then they wouldn’t be so quick to condemn this Island.
Report abuse
We all live in and promote a market economy encouraging free trade and competitiveness don’t we? It just so happens our services are more competitive than the US governments.
Report abuse
Under jersey law no service provider should be adminstering assets or providing services to a US citizen if it is not legal…which is what this legislation aims to catch.
The area that will be hit hard is the Caribbean!
However the US should put its own house in order first as there are more US LLC’s where non-US citizens can hold non-US assets tax free and where no KYC is held (an issue being addressed in this bill) than all the companies of all the so called offshore tax havens!
Most likely outcome is a move to € from $!
Report abuse
yes america should clear up its own mess first.
them living the american dream may become my nightmare.
Report abuse
I am with Phil. Jersey is a nice little island just of the mainland of Europe; just that, a nice little island.
If nothing else the ‘credit crunch’ should have taught Jersey folk to look out from our shores, rather than petty politicking. What is the point in demolishing our glass houses for housing if there is nobody to provide the money to build the houses? More to the point; what is the point of the all finance industry fat cats have slunk of home?
Report abuse
Phil you should not be so ympathetic. This policy is ignorant and/or hypocrital. The US itself is one of the world’s largest tax havens for foreign nationals not resident in the US, generating trillions of dollars for the US economy. In the US: zero tax for non-residents on interest income or dividend income, zero capital gains on profits from investments and zero tax on income earned outside the country.
Report abuse
It is never going to happen, there are so many reasons why and it is pretty obvious to the educated as to why it won’t. There are a lot of people posting comments who seem to want Jersey to fail. Well I’m going to give them the good old Jersey saying, for those who do not like Jersey for what it is now then “There is a boat in the morning”
Report abuse
Ben is right. The scaremongerers are at it again, but what do they really know? Nothing, without sounding to harsh……….
Report abuse
More people are finding out about offshore banking all the time. It’s called chain reaction.
It’s not hard to understand wage slaves’ fascination with tax havens. We work harder and longer hours for less while rich folks, who generally are okay with law and order governments, cheat. Those rightwing, law and order governments treat the majority like the enemy, which they are.
I’m Canadian and live in Canada, where a succession of governments have been conducting deficit terrorism against the populace. That’s where governments take the following position: “We have a deficit and therefore can’t do social spending, even though you didn’t elect us to give tax cuts to the rich and cut social spending.” Governments (comprised of members who are capitalists first and leaders only when forced to be) have taken that position at the behest of the business community and their lobbies, chiefly the Business Council on National Issues, renamed the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. So the subject of tax havens jumped out at me.
I don’t get regular raises from my employer, while the cost of living increases regularly. I’ve been interested in the subject of tax havens since I first read, many years ago, in Mother Jones and The Nation about the scammy practice and now my ears perk up when the subject’s up for discussion. And I read. And I talk to others and at least some of those others will talk to yet more others. And that’s good, from our standpoint.
People, except as a reflection of real people or as some other sort of abstract concept, are not part of any definition of ‘economy’, as the Canadian political philosopher John Ralston Saul notes. Well, It might distress elites and other pathetic souls who worship them for gain, or theoretical gain, to hear from non existant ‘people’ affected by ingenious legalities such as tax havens, but we don’t care. It’s just not in our best interest to care. So suck it up.
Report abuse