The dirty seven
The OECD has named and shamed seven tax havens. It's not often that Monaco and Liechtenstein get to share an unattractive spotlight with Vanuatu and Liberia. This is an incredibly effective initiative of the OECD: the original list in 2000 contained 35 countries, but public humiliation has brought reform in most.
Closer to home for me, yesterday's budget from chancellor Gordon Brown contained a promise to review the rules on domicile. Britain allows a bizarre status of non-domiciled resident, in which case tax can be avoided on wealth held outside the country (like in those seven tax havens).
One supposed expert is quoted in the Financial Times saying, "Without the tax breaks, our relative high cost of living and unappealing climate may put people off coming to London. One of my clients said they would be unlikely to choose London over other centres such as Milan, Paris or Frankfurt." If that's true, which I deeply doubt, good riddance to them. But I think it's balderdash. Investment bankers and the like work in London because it's the centre of international finance. Those alternatives are comparative backwaters.
Incidentally, it is curious to see The New York Times headline the budget: In Calculated Risk, Blair Proposes Tax Rise. Two things are odd about that headline. It's very much Gordon Brown's budget (even if it is from Blair's government). Second, it's pedantry to call it a proposal. When you have a 160-seat majority in the House of Commons, the budget is fact; the vote on it a formality.
4:27:41 PM 
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