The World’s Best Tax Haven: In America, but Unavailable to Americans
Tax competition is an issue that arouses passion on both sides of the debate. Libertarians and other free-market advocates welcome tax competition as a way of restraining the greed of politicians. Governments have lowered tax rates in recent decades, for instance, because politicians are afraid that the geese that lay the golden eggs can fly across the border. But collectivists despise tax competition — for exactly the same reason. They want investors, entrepreneurs, and companies to passively serve as free vending machines, dispensing never-ending piles of money for politicians. So when a left-wing group puts together a ranking of the world’s “top secrecy jurisdictions” in hopes of undermining tax competition, proponents of individual freedom can use that list as a guide to world’s most investor-friendly nations. The good news is that an American state, Delaware, is number one on the list. And since being a tax haven is a magnet for investment, this is good news for U.S. competitiveness. The bad news is that American taxpayers are not allowed to benefit from many of Delaware’s “tax haven” policies. Here’s what a left-wing columnist in the United Kingdom wrote about the issue:
You’re a billionaire but you don’t want anyone, least of all the taxman, to know. What do you do? Head for a palm-fringed island paradise or a snow-covered Alpine micro-state? Wrong. The world’s most opaque jurisdictions – the ones that will best shield you and your cash from the light – are mostly in the heart of the most sophisticated and powerful global financial centres. London, Luxembourg and Zurich are in the top five most secretive jurisdictions, according the first comprehensive index of financial transparency ever compiled. Yet top of the pile, beating the British Virgin Islands, Belize or Liechtenstein as the best place to hide wealth, is Delaware. One of the smallest states in the US, it offers the best protection for anyone who does not want to disclose their identity as a beneficial owner of a company. That is one very good reason why the East Coast state hosts 50% of the US’s quoted firms and 650,000 companies – almost equivalent to one company per Delaware resident. …Delaware – the political power-base of the US vice-president, Joe Biden – offers high levels of banking secrecy and does not make details of trusts, company accounts and beneficial ownership a matter of public record. Delaware also allows companies to re-domicile within its borders with minimal disclosure, and allows the existence of privacy-enhancing “protected cell” or “segregated portfolio” companies, among many other stratagems useful for protecting the identity of those who do business there.
Filed under: Government and Politics; International Economics and Development; Tax and Budget Policy
President Obama’s Dishonest Demagoguery
Politicians exaggerate as a routine matter and have well-deserved reputations for stretching the truth. But when they repeatedly make assertions that they (or their aides) know to be false, they surely deserve to be criticized. That is the purpose of my new video. Entitled “President Obama’s Dishonest Demagoguery on So-Called Tax Havens,” the four-minute presentation looks at the two sound bites that the President uses to demonize low-tax jurisdictions.
Filed under: International Economics and Development; Tax and Budget Policy
IRS Commissioner: Obama Used False Numbers to Attack Low-Tax Jurisdictions
During the campaign, President Obama asserted that tax havens “cost” the Treasury $100 billion per year (see, for instance, 8:07 of this video), echoing the assertions made by demagogues such as Michigan’s Democratic Senator, Carl Levin. Many gullible journalists proceeded to disseminate this number, even though I repeatedly warned that it was a blatant fabrication. Indeed, it was the first falsehood that I punctured in my video entitled, Tax Havens: Myths vs Facts.
So it was with considerable interest that I read about the recent testimony of IRS Commissioner, Douglas Shulman, who acknowledged that the Obama-Levin numbers are “wild estimates” that “don’t have much basis.” Here is the key passage from a report from Bloomberg:
Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman said projections that the US loses $US100 billion annually to offshore tax havens are “wild estimates” that “don’t have much basis”. …”Those numbers are pretty broad numbers,” Shulman said. The $US100 billion figure, a compilation of private-sector estimates, is often cited by Michigan Senator Carl Levin… North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan also frequently cites the $US100 billion figure.
This, of course, raises an interesting question. If politicians are willing to use dishonest numbers to push a certain policy, what does that suggest about the merits of the policy?
Filed under: International Economics and Development; Tax and Budget Policy
Revenge of the Laffer Curve
Steve Moore and Art Laffer have an excellent column in today’s Wall Street Journal. They explain that high-tax states drive repel entrepreneurs and investors, leading to a pronounced Laffer Curve effect. Productive people either leave the state or choose to earn and report less taxable income. And because growth is weaker than in low-tax states, there also is a negative impact on lower-income and middle-class people:
Here’s the problem for states that want to pry more money out of the wallets of rich people. It never works because people, investment capital and businesses are mobile: They can leave tax-unfriendly states and move to tax-friendly states. …Updating some research from Richard Vedder of Ohio University, we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day including Sundays and holidays moved from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas. We also found that over these same years the no-income tax states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts. …Dozens of academic studies — old and new — have found clear and irrefutable statistical evidence that high state and local taxes repel jobs and businesses. …Examining IRS tax return data by state, E.J. McMahon, a fiscal expert at the Manhattan Institute, measured the impact of large income-tax rate increases on the rich ($200,000 income or more) in Connecticut, which raised its tax rate in 2003 to 5% from 4.5%; in New Jersey, which raised its rate in 2004 to 8.97% from 6.35%; and in New York, which raised its tax rate in 2003 to 7.7% from 6.85%. Over the period 2002-2005, in each of these states the “soak the rich” tax hike was followed by a significant reduction in the number of rich people paying taxes in these states relative to the national average.
Interestingly, the Baltimore Sun last week published an article noting that the soak-the-rich tax imposed last year is backfiring. There are fewer rich people, less taxable income, and lower tax revenue. To be sure, some of this is the result of a nationwide downturn, but the research cited by Moore and Laffer certainly suggest that the state revenue shortfall will continue even after than national economy recovers:
A year ago, Maryland became one of the first states in the nation to create a higher tax bracket for millionaires as part of a broader package of maneuvers intended to help balance the state’s finances and make the tax code more progressive. But as the state comptroller’s office sifts through this year’s returns, it is finding that the number of Marylanders with more than $1 million in taxable income who filed by the end of April has fallen by one-third, to about 2,000. Taxes collected from those returns as of last month have declined by roughly $100 million. …Karen Syrylo, a tax expert with the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, which lobbied against the millionaire bracket, said she has heard from colleagues who are attorneys and accountants that their clients moved out of state to avoid the new tax rate. She said that some Maryland jurisdictions boast some of the highest combined state and local income tax burdens in the country. “Maryland is such a small state, and it is so easy to move a few miles south to Virginia or a few miles north to Pennsylvania,” Syrylo said. “So there are millionaires who are no longer going to be filing Maryland tax returns.”
With President Obama proposing higher tax rates for the entire nation, perhaps this is a good time to remind people about the three-part video series on the Laffer Curve that I narrated. If you have not yet had a chance to watch them, the videos are embedded here for your viewing pleasure:
Obama Taking on ‘Tax Havens’
Jeff Zeleny at the New York Times Caucus Blog reports, “President Obama will present a set of proposals on Monday aimed at changing international tax policy, calling for the elimination of benefits for companies and wealthy individuals that harbor their cash in offshore accounts.”
Cato scholars have long made arguments in defense of tax havens. In The Wall Street Journal, Senior Fellow Richard Rahn outlined the policy the federal government should be taking instead:
The correct policy for the United States to follow is to reduce its corporate tax rate to make it internationally competitive, and to move toward a tax system that does not punish savings and productive investment so severely. We know from the experiences of many countries that reducing tax rates and simplifying the tax code improve both tax compliance and economic growth. Tax protectionism should be rejected because it is at least as destructive to economic growth and job creation as are tariffs on goods and services.
Cato scholar Daniel J. Mitchell narrated a three part video series on the subject, presenting the economic and moral cases for tax havens, and a final video that punctured myths associated with the practice.
Mitchell spoke on Capitol Hill last month about the role of tax havens and in Foreign Policy magazine, Mitchell explained why tax havens are a blessing.
Filed under: International Economics and Development; Tax and Budget Policy
Tax Havens Should be Emulated, Not Prosecuted
My March 23 Capitol Hill speech defending tax havens against fiscal protectionism is now a two-part Youtube series, complete with the powerpoint slides from my presentation. Unfortunately, we are fighting a defensive battle and the other side is making progress. If you have any suggestions for making stronger arguments for tax competition, fiscal sovereignty, and financial privacy, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Filed under: International Economics and Development; Tax and Budget Policy
Tax Havens Have Stronger Governance Standards
Congratulations to The Economist for reporting on a new study showing that so-called tax havens actually have the strongest laws to weed out shady money. The article cites new research by an Australian political scientist, who conducted real-world tests to confirm that it is much easier to set up anonymous structures in nations such as the United States and United Kingdom than it is to set up similar structures in places such as Bermuda and Switzerland:
…with a budget of $10,000 and little more than Google (and the ads at the back of this paper), [Jason Sharman, a political scientist at Australia’s Griffith University] showed how easy it was to circumvent prohibitions on banking secrecy, forming anonymous shell companies and secret bank accounts across the world. In doing so he has uncovered an uncomfortable truth for many of the leaders of Group of 20 nations meeting on April 2nd to discuss, among other things, sanctions against offshore tax havens. The most egregious examples of banking secrecy, money laundering and tax fraud are found not in remote alpine valleys or on sunny tropical isles but in the backyards of the world’s biggest economies. …A money-laundering threat assessment in 2005 by the federal government found that corporate anonymity offered by Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming rivalled that of familiar offshore financial centres. For foreigners, America is a particularly attractive place to stash cash, because it does not tax the interest income they earn. Thus with both anonymity and no taxation, America offers them all the elements of a tax haven. …America is not the only rich nation Mr Sharman tested. He tried to open anonymous shell companies and bank accounts 45 times across the world. These were successful in 17 cases, of which 13 were in OECD countries. One example was Britain, where in 45 minutes on the internet he formed a company without providing identification, was issued with bearer shares (which have been almost universally outlawed because they confer completely anonymous ownership) as well as nominee directors and a secretary. …In contrast, when trying to open accounts in Bermuda and Switzerland, he was asked for documentation such as notarised copies of his birth certificate. “In practice OECD countries have much laxer regulation on shell corporations than classic tax havens,” Mr Sharman concludes.
Filed under: International Economics and Development; Tax and Budget Policy
Events This Week
Monday, March 23, 2009
BOOK FORUM- The Tie Goes to Freedom: Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on Liberty
12:00 PM (Luncheon to Follow)
The Cato Institute
Author Helen Knowles examines how Kennedy’s background as a law student and classroom teacher has influenced his judicial philosophy. The book begins by examining Kennedy’s judicial thought in the context of libertarian thought. Knowles does not call the justice a libertarian. Instead, in a sympathetic but not uncritical analysis, she uses libertarian philosophy, focusing on privacy, race, and speech cases, to draw out Kennedy’s views about limited government and individual liberty. Please join us for a discussion of Justice Kennedy’s “modest libertarianism,” with comments by one of the nation’s foremost constitutional scholars, Professor Randy Barnett.
CAPITOL HILL BRIEFING- Tax Havens Should Be Celebrated, Not Persecuted
12:00 PM (Lunch Included)
B-340 Rayburn House Office Building
Join Cato scholar Dan Mitchell and former member of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority Richard Rahn to review the myths and realities about the role of tax havens in the global economy.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
POLICY FORUM- Georgia’s Liberal Institutions In the Wake of War and the Global Economic Crisis
12:00 PM (Luncheon to Follow)
The Cato Institute
Featuring David Bakradze, Speaker of the Georgian Parliament; Kakha Bendukidze, Former Minister of the Economy and Reform Coordination, Georgia; and Andrei Illarionov, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, Cato Institute.
Register to attend or watch live online here.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties
Week in Review: Bailout Bonuses, Marijuana and Eminent Domain Abuse
House Approves 90 Percent ‘Bonus Tax’
Sparked by outrage over the bonus checks paid out to AIG executives, the House approved a measure Thursday that would impose a 90 percent tax on employee bonuses for companies that receive more than $5 billion in federal bailout funds.
Chris Edwards, Cato’s director of tax policy studies, says the outrage over AIG is misplaced:
While Congress has been busy with this particular inquisition, the Federal Reserve is moving ahead with a new plan to shower the economy with a massive $1.2 trillion cash infusion — an amount 7,200 times greater than the $165 million of AIG retention bonuses.
So members of Congress should be grabbing their pitchforks and heading down to the Fed building, not lynching AIG financial managers, most of whom were not the ones behind the company’s failures.
Cato executive vice president David Boaz says this type of selective taxation is a form of tyranny:
The rule of law requires that like people be treated alike and that people know what the law is so that they can plan their lives in accord with the law. In this case, a law is being passed to impose taxes on a particular, politically unpopular group. That is a tyrannical abuse of Congress’s powers.
On a related note, Cato senior fellow Richard W. Rahn defended the use of tax havens in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, saying the practice will only become more prevalent as taxes increase in the United States:
U.S. companies are being forced to move elsewhere to remain internationally competitive because we have one of the world’s highest corporate tax rates. And many economists, including Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas, have argued that the single best thing we can do to improve economic performance and job creation is to eliminate multiple taxes on capital gains, interest and dividends. Income is already taxed once, before it is invested, whether here or abroad; taxing it a second time as a capital gain only discourages investment and growth.
Obama to Stop Raids on State Marijuana Distributors
Attorney General Eric Holder announced this week that the president would end federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries that were common under the Bush administration.
It’s about time, says Tim Lynch, director of Cato’s Project on Criminal Justice:
The Bush administration’s scorched-earth approach to the enforcement of federal marijuana laws was a grotesque misallocation of law enforcement resources. The U.S. government has a limited number of law enforcement personnel, and when a unit is assigned to conduct surveillance on a California hospice, that unit is necessarily neglecting leads in other cases that possibly involve more violent criminal elements.
The Cato Institute hosted a forum Tuesday in which panelists debated the politics and science of medical marijuana. In a Cato daily podcast, Dr. Donald Abrams explains the promise of marijuana as medicine.
Cato Links
• A new video tells the troubling story of Susette Kelo, whose legal battle with the city of New London, Conn., brought about one of the most controversial Supreme Court rulings in many years. The court ruled that Kelo’s home and the homes of her neighbors could be taken by the government and given over to a private developer based on the mere prospect that the new use for her property could generate more tax revenue or jobs. As it happens, the space where Kelo’s house and others once stood is still an empty dustbowl generating zero economic impact for the town.
• Daniel J. Ikenson, associate director of Cato’s Center for Trade Policy Studies, explains why the recent news about increasing protectionism will be short-lived.
• Writing in the Huffington Post, Cato foreign plicy analyst Malou Innocent says Americans should ignore Dick Cheney’s recent attempt to burnish the Bush administration’s tarnished legacy.
• Reserve your spot at Cato University 2009: “Economic Crisis, War, and the Rise of the State.”
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; General; Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties; Tax and Budget Policy
The Joys of Global Gridlock
The G-20 Summit in London on April 2 will feature politicians from around the world jockeying to promote bad ideas. Thankfully, there is a silver lining to this dark cloud since the United States and Europe do not agree on which bad idea deserves the most prominence. As the Wall Street Journal explains, the United States wants more nations to squander money of Keynesian-style schemes (see here to understand why bigger government is not stimulus). The Europeans, meanwhile, want to persecute tax havens and give the Keystone Cops at the IMF more money:
The U.S. will press world leaders to boost emergency government spending to lift the global economy, risking a rift with European nations more concerned with revamping financial regulation. In President Barack Obama’s first foray into economic diplomacy, Washington will urge the shift at a summit next month in London, U.S. officials say, as markets look for a unified plan of action from the world’s most economically powerful nations. Washington’s focus is at odds with France, Germany and other European nations that want the Group of 20 summit on April 2 to focus on rewriting rules governing financial markets. … U.S. officials, who could receive support from China and other countries with big stimulus programs, contend additional government spending is needed to reduce the depth and length of the downturn. Britain also may have an easier time seeing eye-to-eye with the U.S. than other European countries because both London and Washington are concerned that tighter financial regulation could harm their financial centers. Administration officials also say the G-20 isn’t ready to put new regulations in place, so focusing in that area would be counterproductive. … Even if the U.S. gets its way, the G-20 won’t ignore financial regulation. The G-20 has approved the concept of regulating the world’s largest financial institutions through international “colleges” of regulators.
The International Herald Tribune has more details on the misguided European proposals. At no point, though, is there any explanation of why the global economy would benefit from a bigger and more powerful IMF. The IMF certainly did not correctly predict the current financial turmoil. Nor has the IMF either correctly identified the government policy mistakes that caused the crisis or proposed policies that would help resuscitate the global economy. So why reward the bureaucrats with more money and power? The attack against tax havens is even more dubious. Desperate politicians like Gordon Brown are seeking scapegoats to distract voters, but it is unclear why tax havens should be blamed for asset bubbles caused by weak monetary policy and housing subsidies in “onshore” nations:
European finance ministers intend to push for a doubling of resources for the International Monetary fund to $500 billion, and to back the use of sweeping new sanctions against tax havens, according to a draft document. Confronted by a deepening global economic crisis, the top financial officials in the 27 European Union member countries are expected to agree in principle Tuesday to provide additional temporary funding for the IMF if necessary, and to support significant tightening of financial regulation. At a meeting in Brussels, the EU finance ministers are due to endorse a draft document, already approved by senior officials from national capitals, that will align the positions of European governments before the meeting of the heads of the Group of 20 developing and emerging economies in London next month. “It is essential,” the document says, “that the IMF has the appropriate financial means to assist countries particularly affected by the current crisis. EU member states support a doubling of IMF resources and are ready to contribute to a temporary increase if needed.” … The draft document…calls for the definition of a set of criteria by which to judge those that do not comply with international standards. “A tool box of sanctions” would be used to deal with such tax havens, the draft adds. These would include “the capacity to prohibit sales of financial products generated in these jurisdictions and the capacity to restrict companies’ operations into and from these jurisdictions.”
Gridlock generally is a good thing in Washington. If Republicans and Democrats are fighting, it slows the pace of legislation – which almost always protects liberty and prosperity. On the international level, where politicians scheme to set up cartels for the benefit of governments, gridlock is even more desirable.
Switzerland, Austria, and Luxembourg Defend Financial Privacy…and Get Support from the Czech Republic
The Birmingham Star reports on how Switzerland, Austria, and Luxembourg are defending their human rights policies of protecting financial privacy:
Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria are fighting attempts to put them on blacklist for being tax havens and over-secretive in banking rules. Luxembourg officials hosted discussions with the Swiss and Austrian finance ministers over the weekend, resulting in a demand for involvement in talks on the issue prior to the G20 summit next month. Luxembourg treasury officials said the small European group wanted to be involved in the debates about bank secrecy which were currently being discussed in meetings to which they did not belong, such as the G20.
Equally important, the Czech Republic is standing up for the sovereign right of jurisdictions to have strong human rights laws. The Finance Minister correctly explains that Switzerland’s laws should not be sacrificed on the altar of bigger government. The EU Business reports:
Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg defended Switzerland on Sunday against threats by EU member states to put it on a tax haven blacklist, saying sovereignty is “worth more” than lost taxes. “Certainly tax coffers here and there miss out on a couple of million euros… The independence of a country and the traditions of an independent, neutral Switzerland is however worth more than that,” Schwarzenberg said. “Why must one spoil that at all cost?” he added in an interview with the Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag. The Czech Republic holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, and Switzerland has come under intense pressure in recent months over its banking secrecy laws.
Filed under: Finance, Banking & Monetary Policy; International Economics and Development
Regulations vs. Rate Cuts
A set of stories in International Tax Review today illustrate the backwards nature of U.S. corporate tax policy. The first story discusses the high-profile chest-thumping in Washington over corporate “tax haven abuse.” The congressional response to greater international tax competition is to load even more regulations on American businesses.
The second story is entitled “Taiwan Slashes Corporate Tax Rate”:
Taiwan’s government has approved plans to cut the country’s corporate tax rate from 25% to 20%. Ministers hope the cut will encourage investment in the country and stimulate growth in the economy…
America is in the worst recession in decades and it desperately needs to cut its 40 percent corporate tax rate to reinvigorate business investment. Why are U.S. policymakers so clueless about the most obvious way to spur investment when that policy imperative is clear to leaders just about everywhere else?
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