Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria on Sunday fought off attempts to include them in an international blacklist of tax havens because of their banking secrecy rules, demanding a say in talks on the issue ahead of a G20 summit next month.
“Debates about bank secrecy are conducted in fora to which we do not belong, like the G20 for example,” Luxembourg Treasury Minister Luc Frieden said after hosting discussions with the Swiss and Austrian finance ministers.
“We demand that the doors to these debates are opened to see how lists of tax havens are drawn up,” he told journalists.
PHOTO: AFP
Concern is growing in Luxembourg, Austria and Switzerland about growing international pressure on them for practicing bank secrecy, with the G20 summit in London on April 2 due to reveal a list of uncooperative tax havens.
“We regret that some countries are talking about tax havens without having led debate about the criteria that define a tax haven,” Frieden said, adding that the three countries did not meet those criteria.
“Our aim is to be included in the process of establishing a blacklist” of tax havens, Swiss President and Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz said.
Switzerland has come under particularly strong pressure from the US and big European countries to yield on banking secrecy, which has made Switzerland an international financial center.
Last month, Swiss bank UBS handed over information on up to 300 clients to the US government and paid a fine of US$780 million to settle a case in which it was accused of abetting tax fraud by US clients.
The US government has filed a separate lawsuit to try to force UBS to disclose the identities of 52,000 US customers who allegedly evaded taxes.
France and Germany last week proposed that G20 members punish countries deemed to be “uncooperative” tax havens by breaking off bilateral fiscal conventions with them.
Facing such pressure, Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg are showing a new willingness to help authorities in other countries combat tax fraud while also insisting that they will not entirely pull off the veil of bank secrecy.
“We are ready to have a dialogue to find joint ways of stepping up the fight against tax fraud,” Frieden said.
The G20 summit will be focused on boosting global regulation of the financial sector and infusing more transparency partly by clamping down on offshore tax havens.
“Bank secrecy has nothing to do with the financial crisis,” Austrian Finance Minister Josef Proell said. “Lifting bank secrecy is not the solution to resolve the crisis.”
The Swiss minister said last week that his government could extend an existing withholding tax arrangement with the EU to other countries as well.
Under the arrangement, Swiss authorities apply a withholding tax on interest on the savings accounts of EU bank clients rather than revealing their identities to European authorities.
The arrangement is also used among EU member states in the case of Austria, Luxembourg and Belgium.
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
The Philippines yesterday criticized a “high-risk” maneuver by a Chinese vessel near the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) in a rare incident involving warships from the two navies. The Scarborough Shoal — a triangular chain of reefs and rocks in the contested South China Sea — has been a flash point between the countries since China seized it from the Philippines in 2012. Taiwan also claims the shoal. Monday’s encounter took place approximately 11.8 nautical miles (22km) southeast” of the Scarborough Shoal, the Philippine military said, during ongoing US-Philippine military exercises that Beijing has criticized as destabilizing. “The Chinese frigate BN 554 was
LEISURE: The new law adds Confucius’ birthday, the anniversary of the Battle of Guningtou, Constitution Day and Little New Year as national holidays The Legislative Yuan yesterday passed new legislation adding four national holidays and making Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party used their combined majority in the legislature to push the jointly proposed draft through its third and final reading. This new law supersedes the existing regulations for the implementation of memorial days and state holidays, which are administered by the Ministry of the Interior. The new law recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the anniversary of the Battle of Guningtou on Oct. 25, Constitution Day on Dec. 25 and “Little New Year,”
RSS