Tax haven

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A tax haven is a term, often used pejoratively, to describe a place with very low tax rates for non-domiciled investors, even if the official rates may be higher.^{[a][1][2][3][4][5]}

In some older definitions, a tax haven also offers financial secrecy.^[b][6] However, while countries with high levels of secrecy but also high rates of taxation, most notably the United States and Germany in the Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) rankings,^[c] can be featured in some tax haven lists, they are often omitted from lists for political reasons or through lack of subject matter knowledge. In contrast, countries with lower levels of secrecy but also low "effective" rates of taxation, most notably Ireland in the FSI rankings, appear in most § Tax haven lists.^[9] The consensus on effective tax rates has led academics to note that the term "tax haven" and "offshore financial centre" are almost synonymous.^[10] In reality, many offshore financial centers do not have harmful tax practices and are at the forefront among financial centers regarding AML practices and international tax reporting.

Developments over the past decade have substantially reduced the ability for individuals or corporations to use tax havens for tax evasion (illegal non-payment of taxes owed). These include the end of banking secrecy in many jurisdictions including Switzerland following the passing of the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act and the adoption by most countries, including typical tax havens, of the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) – a multilateral automatic taxpayer data exchange agreement initiated by the OECD.^[11][12] CRS countries require banks and other entities to identify the residence of account holders, beneficial owners of corporate entities^{[13][14][15][16]} and record yearly account balances and communicate such information to local tax agencies, which will report back to tax agencies where account holders or beneficial owners of corporations reside.^[17] CRS intends to end offshore financial secrecy and tax evasion giving tax agencies knowledge to tax offshore income and assets. However very large and complex corporations, like multinationals, can still shift profits to corporate tax havens using intricate schemes.

Traditional tax havens, like Jersey, are open about zero rates of taxation, and as a consequence they have few bilateral tax treaties. Modern corporate tax havens have non-zero official (or "headline") rates of taxation and high levels of OECD compliance, and thus have large networks of bilateral tax treaties. However, their base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) tools—such as ample opportunities to render income exempt from tax, for instance—enable corporations and non-domiciled investors to achieve de facto tax rates closer to zero, not just in the haven but in all countries with which the haven has tax treaties; thereby putting them on tax haven lists. According to modern studies, the § Top 10 tax havens include corporate-focused havens like the Netherlands, Singapore, the Republic of Ireland, and the United Kingdom; while Luxembourg, Hong Kong, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, and Switzerland feature as both major traditional tax havens and major corporate tax havens. Corporate tax havens often serve as "conduits" to traditional tax havens.^[18][19][20]

Use of tax havens results in a loss of tax revenues to countries which are not tax havens. Estimates of the § Financial scale of taxes avoided vary, but the most credible have a range of US$100-250 billion per annum.^{[21][22][23][24]} In addition, capital held in tax havens can permanently leave the tax base (base erosion). Estimates of capital held in tax havens also vary: the most credible estimates are between US$7-10 trillion (up to 10% of global assets).^[25] The harm of traditional and corporate tax havens has been particularly noted in developing nations, where the tax revenues are needed to build infrastructure.^[26][27][28]

Over 15%^[d] of countries are sometimes labelled tax havens.^[4][9] Tax havens are mostly successful and well-governed economies, and being a haven has brought prosperity.^[31][32] The top 10-15 GDP-per-capita countries, excluding oil and gas exporters, are tax havens. Because of § Inflated GDP-per-capita (due to accounting BEPS flows), havens are prone to over-leverage (international capital misprice the artificial debt-to-GDP). This can lead to severe credit cycles and/or property/banking crises when international capital flows are repriced. Ireland's Celtic Tiger, and the subsequent financial crisis in 2009-13, is an example.^[33] Jersey is another.^[34] Research shows § U.S. as the largest beneficiary, and use of tax havens by U.S corporates maximised U.S. exchequer receipts.^[35]

Historical focus on combating tax havens (e.g. OECD-IMF projects) had been on common standards, transparency and data sharing.^[36] The rise of OECD-compliant corporate tax havens, whose BEPS tools were responsible for most of the lost taxes,^[37][26][23] led to criticism of this approach, versus actual taxes paid.^[38][39] Higher-tax jurisdictions, such as the United States and many member states of the European Union, departed from the OECD BEPS Project in 2017-18 to introduce anti-BEPS tax regimes, targeted raising net taxes paid by corporations in corporate tax havens (e.g. the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 ("TCJA") GILTI-BEAT-FDII tax regimes and move to a hybrid "territorial" tax system, and proposed EU Digital Services Tax regime, and EU Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base).^[38]

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