Conduit and sink OFCs

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Conduit OFC and sink OFC is an empirical quantitative method of classifying corporate tax havens, offshore financial centres (OFCs) and tax havens. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

"Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers": CORPNET's map of connections between countries. Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers Figure 3 Network of ownership flows between countries.jpg
"Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers": CORPNET's map of connections between countries.

Traditional methods for identifying tax havens analyse tax and legal structures for base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) tools. However, this approach follows a purely quantitative approach, ignoring any taxation or legal concepts, to instead follow a big data analysis of the ownership chains of 98 million global companies. The technique gives both a method of classification and a method of understanding the relative scale – but not absolute scale – of havens/OFCs. [5] [6]

The results were published by the University of Amsterdam's CORPNET Group in 2017, and identified two classifications: [5] [6]

Our findings debunk the myth of tax havens [lower-alpha 3] as exotic far-flung islands that are difficult, if not impossible, to regulate. Many offshore financial centers [lower-alpha 3] are highly developed countries with strong regulatory environments.

— Javier Garcia-Bernardo, Jan Fichtner, Frank W. Takes & Eelke M. Heemskerk, CORPNET University of Amsterdam [4]

In 2017, the European Parliament adopted the CORPNET approach into their frameworks for addressing tax havens. [7] In 2018, research by Gabriel Zucman showed that using Orbis database connections specifically underestimates the scale of Ireland, which the Zucman–Tørsløv–Wier 2018 list showed is the largest Conduit OFC in the world. [8] [9] [10] This aside, CORPNET's Conduits and Sinks reconcile closely with the most noted academic top ten tax haven lists.

Background

"Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers": The "Cayman Islands Conundrum". Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers Cayman Conundrum.jpg
"Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers": The "Cayman Islands Conundrum".

The lack of an accepted definition for identifying tax havens (and even offshore financial centres), results in different lists, including:

There are "traditional" tax havens common on all these lists (e.g. some Caribbean and Channel Islands locations), which some global regulators have either blacklisted, or have issued formal warnings/threat of sanctions against, unless transparency is increased. [24] [25]

However, a key difference between the lists regards the major OECD and EU tax havens (or offshore financial centres), such as Switzerland, Ireland the Netherlands and Luxembourg (amongst others). [26] Major regulators like the EU and the OECD don't regard OECD or EU countries as tax havens, and point to their transparency and compliance with international regulations. [27] [28] [29] [30]

Academic leaders in tax haven research, and other non–governmental organizations, point to the role of OECD and EU tax havens in tax avoidance from base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) schemes, like the Double Irish, the Single Malt and the Dutch Sandwich. [31] [32] [33] They regard them as major tax havens in their definitions of tax havens. [9] [10]

CORPNET Report

"Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers": Example of a corporate global ownership chain. Offshore Financial Centre Chains.png
"Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers": Example of a corporate global ownership chain.

A report published in Nature in 2017 on the analysis of offshore financial centres called: "Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers: Conduits and Sinks in the Global Corporate Ownership Network", [4] provided a quantitative and scientific approach to the classification of tax havens. [34] [35] [1] [3]

The report was the result of a multi-year investigation by political economists and computer scientists in the CORPNET research group at the University of Amsterdam. CORPNET is a European Research Council funded group at the University of Amsterdam investigating networks of corporate control. [2] [36]

The report used the Moody's Orbis corporate database, [37] to examine 98 million global companies and their 71 million ownership connections (using big data computer modelling) to identify 5 global Conduit OFCs (Netherlands, United Kingdom, Ireland, Singapore and Switzerland). These are countries of high financial reputation (i.e. not formally labelled "tax havens" by OECD/EU), but who have "advanced" legal and tax structuring vehicles (and SPVs) that help legally route funds to the 24 tax havens (called Sink OFCs), without incurring tax in the Conduit OFC (or even tax in the source of funds location, where royalty payment schemes can be used). [4] [5]

The work built on methods established in the "Offshore–Intensity Ratio", [38] and in particular the understanding "activity" relative to the "scale" of the domestic economy in a country. [39] At its crudest level, the Offshore-Intensity Ratio explains why the countries at the top of global GDP per capita lists are mostly tax havens.

The EU Parliament's Policy Department on Economic and Scientific Policies included the research in its findings for the EU Committee on Money laundering, tax avoidance and tax evasion (PANA), [40] and by tabulating against existing EU–IMF–FSI list of tax havens, showed material gaps in EU understanding of conduits. [7]

CORPNET's top 5 Conduits and top 5 Sinks are 9 of the 10 largest tax havens identified in 2010 by one of the academic founders of tax haven research, James R. Hines Jr. Hines' 2010 list of 10 major tax havens only differs in its omission of the U.K., which in 2010, had only just reformed its corporate tax system. [12] CORPNET's top 5 Conduits and top 5 Sinks closely reconcile with the top 10 major corporate tax havens of other major academic and non–governmental organisation tax haven lists. Other tax academics have incorporated the research into their understanding of tax havens. [41]

Conduit OFC

2018 Global Innovation Property Centre (GIPC) Legal Systems League Table: Patents Sub-Category. GIPC Intellectual Property 2018 (Patents Sub-Category).png
2018 Global Innovation Property Centre (GIPC) Legal Systems League Table: Patents Sub-Category.

Conduit OFCs are described as having advanced legal and tax systems designed to enable corporations to route funds from high tax locations (e.g. Germany) to the sink OFCs (e.g. Bermuda). They tend to have attractive "holding company" regimes (e.g. no withholding taxes, foreign dividends exempt from taxes, capital gains reliefs, full double–tax relief), advanced tax treatment of intellectual property regimes, and large global networks of bilateral tax treaties. [4] [43] [44]

For example, CORPNET's five major conduit OFCs, all have a top–ten ranking in the 2018 Global Innovation Property Centre (GIPC) IP Index. [42] [45] IP has been described as the "raw materials of corporate tax avoidance", [46] and "the leading corporate tax avoidance vehicle". [47] [48]

Conduit OFCs are shown to be dominated by major law firms and global accounting firms, who create the lawfully constructed special purpose vehicles (SPVs) and BEPS tools that make the connections with the sink OFCs, by exploiting legislative loopholes such as the Double Irish and Dutch Sandwich. They advise clients on anticipating future changes (e.g. from OECD BEPS processes), that may need new loopholes (e.g. the single malt arrangement). [49] [4]

Other researchers into tax havens have written that professional service firms in the major OECD and EU tax havens write most of their state's relevant taxation and SPV-related legislation, so that they can create and protect loopholes, and refer to such jurisdictions as being a "captured" by their financial services industry. [50] [51] The legal and tax structuring undertaken by conduit OFCs is considered beyond the trust–structuring type work of the traditional tax haven "offshore magic circle" law firms. Conduit OFCs need structures that can integrate with bilateral tax treaties involving G20 countries, as well as meeting U.S. GAAP / SEC Regulations that U.S. multinationals, one of the largest users of conduit OFCs, need to adhere to. [52] [53]

CORPNET's top five global conduit OFCs channel 47% of corporate offshore connections and include the following: [4] [54]

  1. Flag of the Netherlands.svg  Netherlands – the largest global conduit OFC (by total connections), with dense links from the EU–28 (via the "Dutch Sandwich"), to the EU sink OFC of Luxembourg, and the Caribbean sink OFC "triad" of Bermuda/BVI/Cayman. [55] [1] [56]
  2. Flag of the United Kingdom.svg  United Kingdom – second-largest conduit OFC (by total connections), with dense links from Europe to Asia; 18 of the 24 sink OFCs are current, or past, dependencies of the UK (see table on sink OFCs). [2] [57] [58]
  3. Flag of Switzerland (Pantone).svg  Switzerland – a major conduit OFC with a very dense network of connections with Jersey, the fourth-largest sink OFC. [1] [4]
  4. Flag of Singapore.svg  Singapore – the main conduit OFC for Asia, and densely connected to the two major Asian sink OFCs of Hong Kong and Taiwan. [4]
  5. Flag of Ireland.svg  Ireland – very dense connections with the US (see Ireland as a tax haven), [1] with very dense connections to sink OFC Luxembourg, an established "backdoor" out of the Irish tax system. [59] [60]

Sink OFC

"Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers": List of Sink OFCs ordered by value (showing U.K. dependencies). List of sink-OFCs, ordered by sink centrality value.png
"Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers": List of Sink OFCs ordered by value (showing U.K. dependencies).

Sink OFCs cover a broad range of locations from very small countries (e.g. the Marshall Islands), to major global financial centres (e.g. Hong Kong). [4]

Just because funds reach a Sink OFC, does not mean that they remain dormant. Quite the contrary, the funds can be invested in assets all over the world, but their legal ownership and future gains remain in the Sink OFC. For example, the circa US$1 trillion of US company offshore cash is held in Sink OFCs (esp. the Caribbean). [61] [62]

The report highlighted some interesting aspects of the 24 Sink OFCs: [4]

  1. British Virgin Islands – in terms of connections, the BVI was the "Netherlands of sink OFCs" and heavily linked with the conduit OFC United Kingdom.
  2. Luxembourg and Hong Kong – could have been considered conduit OFCs, but CORPNET's research showed they are even bigger sink OFCs (i.e. long-term homes for funds) for routing funds out of high-tax EU countries (Luxembourg) and out of China (Hong Kong).
  3. Jersey – remains a unique link with major conduit OFC, Switzerland (because the study could not capture individual "Jersey trusts", it noted that the scale of Jersey could still be understated).
  4. Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Triad – these three traditional tax havens are heavily interlinked and starting to present as one large Sink OFC.
  5. Taiwan – has been a controversial entrant on several tax haven lists, and is identified as the 2nd largest Asian Sink OFC.
  6. Cayman Islands – the Cayman Islands are becoming the biggest financial centre for Central and Latin America. [63]
  7. Malta – the report highlights the rise of sink OFC Malta as an emerging tax haven "inside" the EU, [64] [65] which has been a source of wider media scrutiny. [66]
  8. Mauritius – has become a major Sink OFC for both SE Asia (especially India), and African economies, and now ranking 8th overall. [67]

OECD failings

Of the wider tax environment, O'Rourke thinks the OECD base–erosion and profit–shifting (BEPS) process is "very good" for Ireland. "If BEPS sees itself to a conclusion, it will be good for Ireland".

Feargal O'Rourke CEO PwC (Ireland)
Cited "architect" of the Double Irish BEPS tool [68] [69]
Irish Times, 2015 [70]

An example of an IP–based BEPS tool is Ireland's Capital Allowances for Intangible Assets (CAIA) tool, also known as the "Green Jersey", which has an effective tax rate of 0–2.5%. Apple used the CAIA (or Green Jersey) BEPS tool in Q1 2015, resulting in the "leprechaun economics" restatement of Irish GDP by 34.4 percent. Ireland has other IP–based BEPS tools (Ireland as the first OECD nexus-compliant KDB), [71] and is a supporter of the OECD BEPS project (see box). [70]

Isle of Man omitted

The Isle of Man (the "IOM") was absent from the list of top sink OFCs. The IOM appears on tax–haven lists and ranks 42 on the 2018 Financial Secrecy Index. [72] [73]

The Chief Minister of the IOM, Howard Quayle, announced that the CORPNET report proved that the IOM is not a tax haven. [74] [75] However, CORPNET researchers from the University of Amsterdam directly replied to Howard Quayle's article [76] clarifying that while the IOM does not appear as a leading sink OFC for corporate tax avoidance, it does not mean that individuals (personal bank accounts and trusts) do not use the IOM to avoid taxes, and particularly United Kingdom VAT.

Other commentators have added that the IOM is "failing as a tax haven", and is now too small to appear in major studies like the CORPNET research. [77]

Ireland underestimated

The CORPNET report used legal corporate connections on the Orbis database, rather than the actual "quantum" of money, as its primary metric of analysis. In theory, the authors felt that this does not impede the goal of classification, and of making relative rankings. However, it does mean the "monetary amount" of potential tax avoidance was not calculated. [4]

The tax haven academic and author of The Hidden Wealth of Nations , Gabriel Zucman, used a different quantitative approach. Zucman focused on macro–data of national statistical accounts. In theory, the total assets in a system should equal the total liabilities. By aggregating national account data, Zucman identified an excess of liabilities over assets, implying that the missing assets (to balance the equation), are hidden in tax–havens. On this basis, in 2015, he estimated that 8% of the world's wealth (or US$7.6 trillion) was "missing" in offshore tax–havens. [78] [79]

Zucman's analysis highlighted the special case of Ireland and why the Orbis database underestimates Ireland's scale as one of the world's largest corporate tax avoidance, or BEPS, hubs. [80] In 2018, Zucman (et alia) showed that many of Ireland's U.S. multinationals don't appear on Orbis (e.g. Facebook), or only have a small fraction of their data on Orbis (e.g. Google and Apple). Analysed using "quantum of funds" (not "Orbis connections"), Zucman showed Ireland is one of the largest corporate tax shelters in the world, and a route for Zucman's estimated loss of 20% in EU corporate tax revenues annually. [8] [9] [10]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ See the table below for the list of the sinks.
  2. ↑ The conduits are: Netherlands, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Singapore, and Ireland.
  3. 1 2 As discussed in the Definitions sections of tax havens, and of offshore financial centres, most tax academics consider the terms as being synonymous and use them inter–changeably

Related Research Articles

Corporate haven, corporate tax haven, or multinational tax haven is used to describe a jurisdiction that multinational corporations find attractive for establishing subsidiaries or incorporation of regional or main company headquarters, mostly due to favourable tax regimes, and/or favourable secrecy laws, and/or favourable regulatory regimes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Financial Services Centre, Dublin</span> Financial centre in Dublin, Ireland

The International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) is an area of central Dublin and part of the CBD established in the 1980s as an urban regeneration area and special economic zone (SEZ) on the derelict state-owned former port authority lands of the reclaimed North Wall and George's Dock areas of the Dublin Docklands. The term has become a metonym for the Irish financial services industry as well as being used as an address and still being classified as an SEZ.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corporation tax in the Republic of Ireland</span> Irish corporate tax regime

Ireland's Corporate Tax System is a central component of Ireland's economy. In 2016–17, foreign firms paid 80% of Irish corporate tax, employed 25% of the Irish labour force, and created 57% of Irish OECD non-farm value-add. As of 2017, 25 of the top 50 Irish firms were U.S.–controlled businesses, representing 70% of the revenue of the top 50 Irish firms. By 2018, Ireland had received the most U.S. § Corporate tax inversions in history, and Apple was over one–fifth of Irish GDP. Academics rank Ireland as the largest tax haven; larger than the Caribbean tax haven system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Financial centre</span> Locations which are centres of financial activity

A financial centre or financial hub, is a location with a concentration of participants in banking, asset management, insurance or financial markets with venues and supporting services for these activities to take place. Participants can include financial intermediaries, institutional investors, and issuers. Trading activity can take place on venues such as exchanges and involve clearing houses, although many transactions take place over-the-counter (OTC), that is directly between participants. Financial centres usually host companies that offer a wide range of financial services, for example relating to mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, or corporate actions; or which participate in other areas of finance, such as private equity, hedge funds, and reinsurance. Ancillary financial services include rating agencies, as well as provision of related professional services, particularly legal advice and accounting services.

A tax haven is a term, sometimes used negatively and for political reasons, to describe a place with very low tax rates for non-domiciled investors, even if the official rates may be higher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Offshore financial centre</span> Corporate-focused tax havens

An offshore financial centre (OFC) is defined as a "country or jurisdiction that provides financial services to nonresidents on a scale that is incommensurate with the size and the financing of its domestic economy."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Double Irish arrangement</span> Irish corporate tax avoidance tool

The Double Irish arrangement was a base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) corporate tax avoidance tool used mostly by United States multinationals since the late 1980s to avoid corporate taxation on non-U.S. profits. It was the largest tax avoidance tool in history and by 2010 was shielding US$100 billion annually in US multinational foreign profits from taxation, and was the main tool by which US multinationals built up untaxed offshore reserves of US$1 trillion from 2004 to 2018. Traditionally, it was also used with the Dutch Sandwich BEPS tool; however, 2010 changes to tax laws in Ireland dispensed with this requirement.

The Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) is a report published by the controversial advocacy organization Tax Justice Network (TJN) which ranks countries by financial secrecy indicators, weighted by the economic flows of each country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Base erosion and profit shifting</span> Multinational tax avoidance tools

Base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) refers to corporate tax planning strategies used by multinationals to "shift" profits from higher-tax jurisdictions to lower-tax jurisdictions or no-tax locations where there is little or no economic activity, thus "eroding" the "tax-base" of the higher-tax jurisdictions using deductible payments such as interest or royalties. For the government, the tax base is a company's income or profit. Tax is levied as a percentage on this income/profit. When that income / profit is transferred to another country or tax haven, the tax base is eroded and the company does not pay taxes to the country that is generating the income. As a result, tax revenues are reduced and the government is detained. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) define BEPS strategies as "exploiting gaps and mismatches in tax rules". While some of the tactics are illegal, the majority are not. Because businesses that operate across borders can utilize BEPS to obtain a competitive edge over domestic businesses, it affects the righteousness and integrity of tax systems. Furthermore, it lessens deliberate compliance, when taxpayers notice multinationals legally avoiding corporate income taxes. Because developing nations rely more heavily on corporate income tax, they are disproportionately affected by BEPS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dutch Sandwich</span> Dutch withholding tax avoidance tool

Dutch Sandwich is a base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) corporate tax tool, used mostly by U.S. multinationals to avoid incurring European Union withholding taxes on untaxed profits as they were being moved to non-EU tax havens. These untaxed profits could have originated from within the EU, or from outside the EU, but in most cases were routed to major EU corporate-focused tax havens, such as Ireland and Luxembourg, by the use of other BEPS tools. The Dutch Sandwich was often used with Irish BEPS tools such as the Double Irish, the Single Malt and the Capital Allowances for Intangible Assets ("CAIA") tools. In 2010, Ireland changed its tax-code to enable Irish BEPS tools to avoid such withholding taxes without needing a Dutch Sandwich.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bermuda Black Hole</span> Corporate tax avoidance strategy

Bermuda black hole refers to base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) tax avoidance schemes in which untaxed global profits end up in Bermuda, which is considered a tax haven. The term was most associated with US technology multinationals such as Apple and Google who used Bermuda as the "terminus" for their Double Irish arrangement tax structure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gabriel Zucman</span> French economist

Gabriel Zucman is a French economist who is currently an associate professor of public policy and economics at the University of California, Berkeley‘s Goldman School of Public Policy. The author of The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens (2015), Zucman is known for his research on tax havens and corporate tax havens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leprechaun economics</span> Term used to describe a distortion of Irelands GDP by Apple Inc restructuring

Leprechaun economics was a term coined by economist Paul Krugman to describe the 26.3 per cent rise in Irish 2015 GDP, later revised to 34.4 per cent, in a 12 July 2016 publication by the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO), restating 2015 Irish national accounts. At that point, the distortion of Irish economic data by tax-driven accounting flows reached a climax. In 2020, Krugman said the term was a feature of all tax havens.

The OECD G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project is an OECD/G20 project to set up an international framework to combat tax avoidance by multinational enterprises ("MNEs") using base erosion and profit shifting tools. The project, led by the OECD's Committee on Fiscal Affairs, began in 2013 with OECD and G20 countries, in a context of financial crisis and tax affairs. Currently, after the BEPS report has been delivered in 2015, the project is now in its implementation phase, 116 countries are involved including a majority of developing countries. During two years, the package was developed by participating members on an equal footing, as well as widespread consultations with jurisdictions and stakeholders, including business, academics and civil society. And since 2016, the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS provides for its 140 members a platform to work on an equal footing to tackle BEPS, including through peer review of the BEPS minimum standards, and monitoring of implementation of the BEPS package as a whole.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irish Section 110 Special Purpose Vehicle</span> Irish zero-tax legal structure

An Irish Section 110 special purpose vehicle (SPV) or section 110 company, is an Irish tax resident company, which qualifies under Section 110 of the Irish Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 (TCA) for a special tax regime that enables the SPV to attain "tax neutrality": i.e. the SPV pays no Irish taxes, VAT, or duties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Modified gross national income</span> Metric to replace distorted Irish GDP

Modified gross national income, Modified GNI or GNI* was created by the Central Bank of Ireland in February 2017 as a new way to measure the Irish economy, and Irish indebtedness, due to the increasing distortion that the base erosion and profit shifting ("BEPS") tools of US multinational tax schemes were having on Irish GNP and Irish GDP; the climax being the July 2016 leprechaun economics affair with Apple Inc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ireland as a tax haven</span> Allegation that Ireland facilitates tax base erosion and profit shifting

Ireland has been labelled as a tax haven or corporate tax haven in multiple financial reports, an allegation which the state has rejected in response. Ireland is on all academic "tax haven lists", including the § Leaders in tax haven research, and tax NGOs. Ireland does not meet the 1998 OECD definition of a tax haven, but no OECD member, including Switzerland, ever met this definition; only Trinidad & Tobago met it in 2017. Similarly, no EU–28 country is amongst the 64 listed in the 2017 EU tax haven blacklist and greylist. In September 2016, Brazil became the first G20 country to "blacklist" Ireland as a tax haven.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qualifying investor alternative investment fund</span> Irish zero-tax legal structure

Qualifying Investor Alternative Investment Fund or QIAIF is a Central Bank of Ireland regulatory classification established in 2013 for Ireland's five tax-free legal structures for holding assets. The Irish Collective Asset-management Vehicle or ICAV is the most popular of the five Irish QIAIF structures, it is the main tax-free structure for foreign investors holding Irish assets.

James R. Hines Jr. is an American economist and a founder of academic research into corporate-focused tax havens, and the effect of U.S. corporate tax policy on the behaviors of U.S. multinationals. His papers were some of the first to analyse profit shifting, and to establish quantitative features of tax havens. Hines showed that being a tax haven could be a prosperous strategy for a jurisdiction, and controversially, that tax havens can promote economic growth. Hines showed that use of tax havens by U.S. multinationals had maximized long-term U.S. exchequer tax receipts, at the expense of other jurisdictions. Hines is the most cited author on the research of tax havens, and his work on tax havens was relied upon by the CEA when drafting the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

Dhammika Dharmapala is an economist who is the Paul H. and Theo Leffman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. He is known for his research into corporate tax avoidance, corporate use of tax havens, and the corporate use of base erosion and profit shifting ("BEPS") techniques.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Daniel Boffey (25 July 2017). "Netherlands and UK are biggest channels for corporate tax avoidance". The Guardian . Archived from the original on 24 May 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2019. Almost 40% of corporate investments channelled away from authorities and into tax havens travel through the UK or the Netherlands, according to a study of the ownership structures of 98m firms.
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  8. 1 2 Gabriel Zucman (April 2018). "The Missing Profits of Nations" (PDF). National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Papers. pp. 11–15. Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2019. Slide 11: Issues with previous literature on global profit shifting
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  11. ↑ "Banks in Tax Havens: First Evidence based on Country–by–Country Reporting" (PDF). EU Commission. July 2017. p. 50. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 June 2018. Retrieved 15 August 2018. Figure D: Tax Haven Literature Review: A Typology
  12. 1 2 James R. Hines Jr. (2010). "Treasure Islands". Journal of Economic Perspectives . 4 (24): 103–125. Table 1: 52 Tax Havens
  13. ↑ James R. Hines Jr. (2007). "Tax Havens" (PDF). University of Michigan. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 September 2016. Retrieved 15 August 2018. There are roughly 45 major tax havens in the world today. Examples include Andorra, Ireland, Luxembourg and Monaco in Europe, Hong Kong and Singapore in Asia, and the Cayman Islands, the Netherlands Antilles, and Panama in the Americas.
  14. ↑ James R. Hines Jr.; Eric M. Rice (February 1994). "FISCAL PARADISE: FOREIGN TAX HAVENS AND AMERICAN BUSINESS" (PDF). Quarterly Journal of Economics (Harvard/MIT). 9 (1). Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 August 2017. Retrieved 15 August 2018. We identify 41 countries and regions as tax havens for the purposes of U. S. businesses. Together the seven tax havens with populations greater than one million (Hong Kong, Ireland, Liberia, Lebanon, Panama, Singapore, and Switzerland) account for 80 percent of total tax haven population and 89 percent of tax haven GDP.
  15. ↑ Dhammika Dharmapala; James R. Hines Jr. (2009). "Which countries become tax havens?" (PDF). Journal of Public Economics . 93 (9–10): 1058–1068. doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2009.07.005. S2CID   16653726. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 August 2017. Retrieved 15 August 2018.
  16. ↑ Gabriel Zucman; Thomas Torslov; Ludvig Wier (June 2018). "The Missing Profits of Nations". National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Papers. p. 31. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 15 August 2018. Appendix Table 2: Tax Havens
  17. ↑ "Towards Global Tax Co-operation" (PDF). OECD. April 2000. p. 17. Archived (PDF) from the original on 31 March 2018. Retrieved 2 April 2018. TAX HAVENS: 1.Andorra 2.Anguilla 3.Antigua and Barbuda 4.Aruba 5.Bahamas 6.Bahrain 7.Barbados 8.Belize 9.British Virgin Islands 10.Cook Islands 11.Dominica 12.Gibraltar 13.Grenada 14.Guernsey 15.Isle of Man 16.Jersey 17.Liberia 18.Liechtenstein 19.Maldives 20.Marshall Islands 21.Monaco 22.Montserrat 23.Nauru 24.Net Antilles 25.Niue 26.Panama 27.Samoa 28.Seychelles 29.St. Lucia 30.St. Kitts & Nevis 31.St. Vincent and the Grenadines 32.Tonga 33.Turks & Caicos 34.U.S. Virgin Islands 35.Vanuatu
  18. ↑ Vanessa Houlder (September 2017). "Trinidad & Tobago left as the last blacklisted tax haven". Financial Times . Archived from the original on 15 December 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2019. Alex Cobham of the Tax Justice Network said: It's disheartening to see the OECD fall back into the old pattern of creating 'tax haven' blacklists on the basis of criteria that are so weak as to be near enough meaningless, and then declaring success when the list is empty".
  19. ↑ "Offshore Financial Centers: IMF Background Paper". International Monetary Fund. 23 June 2000. Archived from the original on 23 August 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2019.
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  21. ↑ Damgaard, Jannick; Elkjaer, Thomas; Johannesen, Niels (June 2018). "Piercing the Veil of Tax Havens". International Monetary Fund: Finance & Development Quarterly. 55 (2). Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2019. The eight major pass-through economies—the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Hong Kong SAR, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Ireland, and Singapore—host more than 85 percent of the world's investment in special purpose entities, which are often set up for tax reasons.
  22. ↑ Gabriel Zucman (August 2013). "The Missing Wealth of Nations: Are Europe and The U.S. Net Debtors or Net Creditors?" (PDF). The Quarterly Journal of Economics . 128 (3): 1321–1364. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.371.3828 . doi:10.1093/qje/qjt012. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 August 2017. Retrieved 27 April 2019. 'Tax havens are low-tax jurisdictions that offer businesses and individuals opportunities for tax avoidance' (Hines, 2008). In this paper, I will use the expression 'tax haven' and 'offshore financial center' interchangeably (the list of tax havens considered by Dharmapala and Hines (2009) is identical to the list of offshore financial centers considered by the Financial Stability Forum (IMF, 2000), barring minor exceptions)
  23. ↑ Richard Phillips; Matt Gardner; Alexandria Robins; Michelle Surka (2017). "Offshore Shell Games 2017" (PDF). Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Amount of Tax Haven Connections (Figure 1, Page 11), Amount of Tax Haven Profits (Figure 4, Page 16)
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