Reputation is ‘promotion priority’
Friday 13th February 2009, 2:59PM GMT.
THE technical promotion of Jersey’s reputation is a top priority for Jersey Finance this year.
Robert Kirkby, technical director at Jersey Finance, says the current ‘media frenzy’ against tax havens is ‘irrational and emotional’, as well as inaccurate.
Speaking at a recent meeting for JFL members, Mr Kirkby said that the Island was ‘not going the way of the dodo’ and needed to maintain its reputation for quality practitioners and robust laws.
But he said that changes were likely to follow from the tightening of international standards in the wake of the global credit crunch, and the outcome of the recent review of the Island’s regulation by the International Monetary Fund.
• Picture: Technical director Robert Kirkby: ‘Media frenzy against tax havens is irrational’
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But there is no prudential regulation of the shadow-banking structures that we helped facilitate. The growth in credit at the margin over the last decade has been from these structures and they have gone pop. JFSC don’t even consider it part of their remit.
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the current ‘media frenzy’ against tax havens is ‘irrational and emotional’, as well as inaccurate.
It may be but it is influencing people as did Panorama
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Speaking at a recent meeting for JFL members, Mr Kirkby said that the Island was ‘not going the way of the dodo’ and needed to maintain its reputation for quality practitioners and robust laws.
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Wait there, isn’t that what the JFSC should be doing? No wonder people get confused between the two.
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I would just ignore the looneys that think Jersey is a tax haven. None work in finance and none are up to date with the shop floor.
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So, Sara, as I am one of those looneys, could you explain what all those billions are doing here and not in their own country where they would be subject to tax. What impressive sounding finance-speak spin could we come up with for that?
I’m sure you’ll all think of something while you’re making sure the money siphoned out of the developing world is safely invested in a shell company or some some amoral nonsense.
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Define ‘Tax Haven’, Sara.
Is it a refuge where people run to to avoid paying money to the tax man?
i.e. ‘Tax’ = tax and ‘Haven’ = refuge.
Sound like Jersey? Does to me.
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I’m with No. 1 on this.The damage done by lax lending under the “originate and distribute” model was facilitated by structures set up and administered in the offshore financial centres, Jersey included. Forget a bit of questionable tax arbitrage we get involved in, the real damage to the world economy has come from credit being advanced under the most questionable assumptions.
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They should concentrate on re-educating from the inside out. I’ve heard more locals make uneducated comments about finance than I have heard journalists!
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Jersey IS a tax haven. We accommodate funds here to enable individuals and corporations to avoid paying international tax.
I am all for promoting Jersey but there needs to be a realisation that we wil suffer over the coming years from international pressure.
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Yosser’s comments v pertinent. Lord Turner,Chairman of the Financial Services Authority, was just on Radio 4 saying how the regulators not only came up short on the banks but also failed to identify and seek to control the risks of the “shadow banking structures” as they were off balance sheet and out of the UK in the offshore finance centres. The JFSC and their equivalents in these centres didn’t do anything about them other than the tick the box regulation of their administrators . A bit like the mess of the tripartite regulatory system of UK banks where no one really took control. Check out the work of the economist Hyman Minsky , we certainly helped facilitate credit origination at the riskier end of the 3 types of borrowers he identified.
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