Archive for October 4th, 2011
Cayman 2nd in TJN’s new secrecy index
(CNS): In its 2011 Financial Secrecy Index, published in London Tuesday, the Tax Justice Network has ranked the Cayman Islands as the second most secret financial centre in the world. In what the international anti-tax haven campaigners describe as the biggest investigation of global financial secrecy in world history, Cayman is only surpassed by Switzerland when it comes to secrecy. The TJN said that despite pledges by G20 countries to close down tax haven infrastructure it has barely been reformed. According to the report the second place ranking for Cayman is based on a combination of its “secrecy score and a scale weighting based on its share of the global market for offshore financial services.”
The campaigners said that although tax havens such as Cayman have been “frantically signing” information-exchange agreements with other jurisdictions, to qualify for the ‘white list’ the OECD standards are woefully inadequate. Following claims by world leaders at a G20 summit meeting in April 2009 promising that “the era of banking secrecy is over” TJN said that its Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) reveals that financial secrecy is as entrenched as ever.
In its detailed report about the Cayman Islands the TJN says that the TIEAs Cayman has signed “under duress” are nothing more than fig leafs and the information sharing under these agreements is of very limited use.
See TJN’s view of the Cayman Islands and financial secrecy here
View the full TJN index here