Michael Hudson — Corporate Accountability And Workplace

In June 2000, international groups rolled out blacklists targeting offshore refuges that shelter tax dodging and money laundering. Some observers predicted “the death of tax havens.”

By 2002 the campaign had, as one tax analyst put it, “dissolved into a series of toothless pronouncements.”

In 2009, offshore centers faced new attacks as the United States pursued an investigation of Swiss banks and nations hit by economic crisis sought to boost tax revenues. “Tax havens and bank secrecy are finished,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared.

By 2010 it was clear the offshore industry had once more survived mostly unscathed.

Now offshore havens are under attack again in the wake of exposés by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and other news outlets.

Britain has vowed to lift the secrecy covering the Cayman Islands and other financial sanctuaries operating under its flag. Dozens of rich nations have agreed — in an unprecedented example of global cooperation on offshore issues — to begin swapping information about assets stashed in foreign accounts. Another French president — François Hollande — has promised to “eradicate” tax havens.
“Looks like the offshore party is over,” the Chicago Tribune said recently.

Will this time be different?

Many financial crime fighters are skeptical....

Typically thorough and detailed report.

AlterNet

Corporate Accountability And Workplace
Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City