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| Where the money is moving to |
At a meeting hosted by the Guernsey FSC the delegates were told there is too much regulation, (I remember one candidate saying that at the last Senatorial election in Jersey but was ridiculed for doing so).
Meanwhile Baroness Williams proven her age by proclaiming us as one of the most secretive jurisdictions in the world the JEP reported
"JERSEY has been labelled ‘one of the most secretive tax havens in the world’ in the House of Lords after it was revealed that UK citizens hold some £19 billion in Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man accounts.
In an exchange between Baroness Williams of Crosby – former Labour and SDP MP Shirley Williams – and deputy government chief whip Lord Newby, it was also revealed that the UK tax department is setting up a new unit to specifically look into money held offshore.
Baroness Williams, a former UK Education Minister who sat in the House of Commons for 17 years, had asked the original question on Monday about how much money British citizens held in Channel Island accounts, and what was being done to investigate them. She also claimed that ‘Jersey is one of the most secretive tax havens in the world’."Whilst I applaud Baroness Williams for trying her best to get us some new customers, the rich really do know where the most secretive jurisdictions in the world are and they know that both Jersey and even Switzerland will do nothing to keep the prying eye of governments out from where they do not belong.
In a recent poll Singapore was voted the most favoured jurisdiction for the world's rich to berth their wealth and Jersey's financial institutions are keen to move their client base there.
The rich do not want governments knowing what they are doing. When I am asked by government what my business is, my natural response is 'NOT YOURS'.
Switzerland, long held to be a finance centre of choice, is losing business fast as they open up their banks to foreign scrutiny, just as Jersey has done as fast as possible. The writing is on the wall and even the JEP is telling you this now, as long as you are listening to what is being said.
The game plan has changed since the recession. I wrote that the penniless Governments of the UK and Europe would be turning over the small stones to get the money in they cannot afford to lose.
ReplyDeleteTo make matters worse the banks continue to nail their true colours to the mast, by pushing their luck to the line, historically one step ahead of Government legislation, a bad gamble these days.
Now they have been caught high and dry, and red handed and illegal.
Governments are in no mood to ignore the banks and tax scams anymore, they are broke. The big wheel turns and Jersey and other tax havens are on the slide.
It was good while it lasted.
Jersey has been on the slide for years, the JFSC has simply acted to shut down all the small and medium sized finance operations and allow them to be absorbed by the top 100 world banks and at the same time increase the number of people employed (and therefore raise the cost of doing business) with ever increasing regulation.
ReplyDeleteBack in the good old days when we walked out of school into whichever bank we wanted there wasn't any such thing as a 'compliance department'. Even in 1998 the bank I worked for had just one person in the compliance department, now it is the only growth area in Jersey finance.
Of course it is small and medium sized businesses which will drive whatever growth there is particularly in recession whilst the giants just cut staff; too big and bloated to adjust quickly enough to take advantage of the changing economic conditions which are an inevitable feature of depressions.
The death of the finance industry is nothing to do with the current climate, it has taken a fifteen year continuous assault by government to achieve. Just as the tourism industry was destroyed by regulation before it.
We have an ineptocracy, a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.