Remarks of
Hon. Robert E. Bauman JD
Legal Counsel, The Sovereign Society LLC
at the conference on the
Case for Tax Competition, Fiscal Sovereignty, & Financial Privacy
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The Cato Institute, Washington, D.C.
The Organization for Economic and Community Development (OECD) is in the forefront of what I do not hesitate to call the attempted "nazification" of the world's sovereign tax systems.
I use "nazification" in the dictionary sense that the term describes persons who are fanatically dedicated and determined to control a specified activity or practice, in this case the imposition of a uniform standard of high taxes and forceful tax collection globally.
History
The OECD claims to be the successor to the Organization for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) that began in 1947 to support the U.S. Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. In 1961 the G-7 major nations created the OECD with a high sounding mandate to help "achieve sustainable economic growth and employment while maintaining financial stability."
It was created as a supposed economic counterpart of NATO. It was, in many ways, a defender of Western economic liberty and professed to be in favor of free market principles. Through the 1980s, OECD studies focused on market solutions against state intervention. Then, in the 1990s, the OECD started its move leftward.
Today the OECD is treated by the liberal media as a recognized authority on just about any and every topic.
It depends for world impact on an unquestioning, semi-ignorant, sympathetic left-wing news media. The OECD job is to churn out propaganda designed to keep taxes high in their home nations, and to destroy small jurisdictions that attract trillions of banking and investment megabucks with low, or no taxes.
Paper Tiger
The bitter irony is that the OECD is nothing more than a paper tiger based on its member states agreement. It's not even a government or international agency, in the sense that the UN has legal standing. It is a glorified public relations operation with diplomatic immunity.
With an almost religious fervor, OECD bureaucrats presume to tell people and governments how they should conduct themselves by, as they claim, "setting standards and creating values for the entire world."
A tall and very presumptuous order for the OECD's 2000 bureaucrats, the salary of everyone of whom is tax exempt because of their coveted diplomatic status. Housed in a fine Parisian mansion that once belonged to the Rothschild family, the Château de la Muette, the OECD's annual budget of over is $300 million, with U.S. taxpayers footing 25% of the cost.
Wordspeak
What its word smiths euphemistically call "unfair tax competition" and a "global playing field" are among the major statist Trojan horses promoted by the OECD. Consider the initiative on "harmful tax competition," launched by the Organization's Committee on Fiscal Affairs in 1998.
"Competitive forces," writes the OECD, "have encouraged countries to make their tax systems more attractive to investors. However, some tax practices are anti-competitive and undermine fair competition and public confidence in tax systems." Thus, the OECD says it wants to achieve a "global level playing field" by requiring member states to enforce their tax laws through exchange of financial information, including banking information on individuals.
At the London G-20 meeting it appears the OECD obtained their goal, at least at pertains to tax information exchange. You can bet the OECD puppet won’t stop there because their puppet masters will keep them dancing for automatic tax information exchange, and eventually, the imposition of international taxes, Tobin or otherwise.
Global Tax Cartel
In public choice terms, the U.S. IRS and the tax collectors of the major welfare states are trying to forming a global cartel to extract as much as possible from the people who are being taxed.
The world needs to be made to understand the OECD's insane definition of what is supposedly "harmful" in the way of "tax competition" -- what is it that turns the socialist stomachs of these effete Paris-based bureaucrats, (these folks who enjoy French diplomatic status, and thus are personally exempt from the taxes they promote for others.)
No -- the taxes that upset them are not HIGH taxes, but LOW taxes; they get their worst heartburn when there are no taxes at all -- which is why they have a constant, burning dislike aimed at the tax havens of the world.
So from an innocuous and rather useful free market oriented economic and statistical shop, the OECD has thus become a promoter of leftist, pro-tax global diktats.
OECD Politics
In 2006, Angel Gurria, a former Mexican politician, became the secretary-general of the OECD. Six candidates had applied for the job, in a highly political process. One of the candidates was Alain Madelin, a French classical liberal politician, who, had he been chosen, would probably have administered a badly needed shaking up the OECD bureaucracy. But Sr. Gurria got the support of a majority of member states, including the U.S. - despite Mr. Madelin's reputation as a supporter of American domestic and foreign policy.
More recently M. Madelin has said he believes that the OECD has been carried into the world governance movement, which, he explains, is where the enemies of liberty have refocused their fight. He adds, pessimistically, "It is the end of the OECD."
If only M. Madeline were correct.
Lovers of liberty can only hope for the curtailment, if not the demise of the OECD. For the last decade this tax exempt Paris think tank, in spite of its sometimes useful research, has served as the chief political propagandist for leftist attacks on tax havens, financial privacy and low taxes and tax competition in general.
Proxy Puppet
Acting as proxy for the major high tax nations, the OECD has often played the bully, especially in its clumsy attempts to crush tax havens and force a uniform system of high taxes worldwide.
In pursuing its dictatorial goals the OECD is doing the bidding of its member nations, many of which, like the United Kingdom, France and Germany, and increasingly, Mr. Obama and his government by czars, are high tax, socialist welfare states bent on ringing every last dollar, pound or euro out of taxpayers to finance expanded socialist programs, continuing trillion dollar deficits and statist economics.
The fiscally faltering welfare states of the EU and beyond need those tax megabucks to finance their spending sprees and to help cover the resulting deficits. And as a result, all citizens are made to suffer.
The Art of Blacklisting
The OECD instrument of choice in their pro tax campaign has been the phony "harmful tax competition" blacklist of nations with low taxes.
To prop up their unreasonable demands, the OECD spun off the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), supposedly devoted to fighting money laundering and terrorist cash, but more concerned with destroying financial privacy. OECD/FATF want unrestricted, automatic government access to any and all financial accounts anywhere in the world.
The Future
Is there hope?
Writing in the year I was born, the late Albert Jay Nock, possessed of an extraordinary mind and a thoughtful libertarian philosophy, published a short essay which speaks to us again today.
Entitled Isaiah's Job, Nock described a small number of friends of liberty he called "the Remnant," whom he hoped would somehow keep the ideals of freedom alive, even when all seemed lost.
Nock wrote at a time when socialist, communist, Nazi and other collectivist governments dominated much of the world. He was deeply pessimistic, yet he expressed confidence about an inevitable triumph for the ideals of liberty.
This may seem another dark hour for the cause of personal and economic liberty, but I suggest that in the work of gatherings such as this and the groups sponsoring it, such as the Cato Institute and the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, we have more than a remnant, but rather vibrant and continuing instruments with which to remind others of the eternal truths of economic liberty.
P.S. Reserve your spot at this year’s Offshore Advantage Academy before it’s too late. We’ve already got more reservations than any event before, and we may just be able to get a few more before the hotel cuts us off. IRS tax and reporting requirements will be major topics. Click here for more on your “last-minute” discount…
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