In Shakespeare's lyrical tale of "star-cross'd" lovers, Romeo & Juliet, the Bard has Juliet ask the pregnant question central to their families' feud: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Well, apparently to some hyper-nervous types the traditional name "tax haven" doesn't smell so sweet as once it did.
In fact, it stinks, according to some public relations conscious officials and financial types located in various jurisdictions that until now indeed have been called, (you'll pardon the expression), "tax havens."
Or as Gertrude Stein so famously said: "A rose is a rose is a rose," probably her most famous quote, which she often interpreted as: "Things are what they are." Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
It seems that some tax havens worthies, buckling under pressure, now want their locales to be known sweetly to the world as "offshore financial centers." Indeed, some of these nervous nellies don't even want the word "offshore" to be used because they say that has come to suggest dirty money, tax evasion and financial skullduggery.
No doubt much of this offshore linguistic paranoia is the result of the relentless media war against tax havens waged by the Organization for Economic & Community Development (OECD) and its subgroup, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), both famous for their phony blacklists of selected "tax havens" that refused to surrender to their highhanded demands.
Under the supposed guise of waging war against illicit cash from drug lords and blocking terrorist finances, these groups have done all they can to destroy banking secrecy, as well as personal and financial privacy. Their true goal has been to promote uniformly high taxes and give tax collectors unrestricted access to the bank and financial records of anyone anywhere they target.
Man Oh Man
Thus it was that the Isle of Man's Chief Minister, Tony Brown, last week pleaded with members of a U.K. House of Commons committee who visited the Crown Dependency as part of their inquiry into offshore finance centers: "Don't lump us in with those other 'offshores.'" Brown said that there is no commonly agreed definition of the term "offshore"' and use of that now scare word might lead to "unstated assumptions."
Brown insisted: "We've got a lot of recognition as a being a very good financial center but we are still being lumped in with areas that maybe are not so good. Expressions like 'offshore' and 'tax haven' have no agreed standard definition. We tend to use the term 'international finance center.'"
Another Island Heard From
Far across the Atlantic Ocean The Bahamas Journal reports that: "Offshore finance centers (OFCs) like The Bahamas are seeking to shed their image as places wealthy individuals use to evade taxes, and according to some, the change in image is succeeding. It's a trend marked by jurisdictions promoting themselves as 'well regulated' and 'transparent,' whereas the image of the OFC used to be almost exclusively tied to impregnable bank secrecy laws and regimes."
Former governor of the Central Bank of The Bahamas James Smith noted that the effect of the OECD/FATF "blacklists" led to a new regime of self regulation by various offshore financial centers. In fact, long before the silly discussion of names, most of the leading offshore centers adopted strong anti-money laundering laws, created financial regulatory bodies, adopted "know your customer" regimes and generally set higher standards than the free wheeling banks in the U.S. and the U.K.
Principality PR
And in line with all this new window dressing, Liechtenstein announced it plans to go on a charm offensive in neighboring countries to dispel notions that it is a harmful tax haven. The Principality has gotten a bad rap after the German government paid a huge criminal bribe to an ex-bank employee who sold them a list of Germans with bank accounts there. The government of the principality is introducing a new law relating to family foundations and is planning a marketing campaign in Austria, Germany and Switzerland ahead of the law's introduction next year.
According to the most recent Merrill Lynch World Wealth Report, financial wealth among high net worth individuals is expected to reach US$51.6 trillion (€32.8 trillion) by 2011, growing at an annual rate of 6.8%. Much that cash will be stashed (legally) in tax havens.
Or as that rosey Gertrude Stein said: "Things are what they are."
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