Inside the Fight to Prevent Billions in International Money Laundering and Tax Shelters

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http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/push-against-offshore-secrecy-uphill-battle




In June 2000, international groups rolled out blacklists targeting offshore refuges that shelter tax dodging and money laundering. Some observers predicted “the death of tax havens.”

By 2002 the campaign had, as one tax analyst put it, “dissolved into a series of toothless pronouncements.”

In 2009, offshore centers faced new attacks as the United States pursued an investigation of Swiss banks and nations hit by economic crisis sought to boost tax revenues. “Tax havens and bank secrecy are finished,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared.

By 2010 it was clear the offshore industry had once more survived mostly unscathed.

Now offshore havens are under attack again in the wake of exposés by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and other news outlets.