Editorial
You said tax haven ?
T
here is certainly a good dose of naivety in Switzerland, in thinking that we can maintain informal or even amicable exchanges with our European neighbours, all the while officially harbouring their taxpayers’ undeclared assets here. But it is especially naive to imagine that the situation will be completely normalised by new rules on transparency and exchange of information, as if, moreover, there was no fierce economic war in existence between various international financial centres.
Editorial
*Report on cybercrime by the Compagnie Européenne d’Intelligence Stratégique (European Strategic Intelligence Company).
By giving the floor not only to recognised Swiss specialists in tax and banking matters, but by also carrying out an overview of the practices of the various States in terms of tax and monitoring flows of capital, we wanted to highlight that Switzerland, while very isolated, nevertheless does not have grounds to nurture this feeling of guilt that we try, with a certain amount of success, to create in our fellow citizens. Without a doubt, we don’t quite know why Spain (and not only Holland) practices the system of ETVE (entities holding foreign securities) which enabled Exxon to collect 10 billion in profits, fully tax free, in two years; and if everyone, or almost everyone, heard Delaware being spoken of, do we know in concrete terms, beyond the record number of domiciliary companies – more than one per inhabitant – that the creation of a new entity there is possible via the Internet for less than 200 dollars and that the economic beneficiary may remain completely secret there ? And that this small State within the world’s primary superpower is far from being a unique case, as more than a dozen American States (Nevada and Wyoming among them) are competing in this niche market. Not surprising then that a report on cybercrime names the United States of America as « the country most sought after for illegal financial flows »*. And without a doubt, we don’t quite know why Switzerland does not meet the accepted criteria of tax havens by a long way (with, in particular, very heavy wealth tax when compared internationally), as witnessed by the fact that French tax expatriates mainly choose England or Belgium, rather than Switzerland, as a new destination. Perhaps you are asking what is the point of dealing with this theme in a general circulation publication ? Well, because it basically interests the average citizen even more than our major banks : these are organised to follow and deal with their clientele in the new financial centres which are picking up the slack from Switzerland, such as Singapore, while our fellow citizens are directly suffering the effects of the Swiss financial centre’s slimming down programme (more than 10% of GDP all the same !). In other words, it is not so much as being preoccupied with the health of the Swiss banks, who are largely globalised, as employment in our country and especially in our region. Is that not then a good reason for us all to be interested in this issue, its challenges and what can even be rescued ?
Thierry Barbier-Mueller
Read me in English. Click on www.immorama.ch
n° 31 - Autumn 2012 -
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