TREASURE ISLANDS

What the company registry in Cyprus tax haven actually looks like

Courtesy of the Norwegian Business Daily Dagens Næringsliv (dn.no), with thanks to David Officer for the tip, we have this remarkable photograph of the Cyprus company registry. A rough web translation of the caption reads:

“PAPER JUNGLE. The employees at the company inspection register of Cyprus, drowning in documents that should have been public.”

The story…

For Cyprus, the tax haven apologists are out in force

Cross-posted from a blog I just wrote for the Tax Justice Network:

The Moscow Times is carrying a remarkable piece entitled After Cyprus Bath, Russia Needs New Haven, which contains the following:

“Their critics blame offshore financial centers for a variety of ills. For example, they help corrupt businesspeople and bureaucrats launder profits from illegal activities,

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Cyprus: Hot Russian money isn’t necessarily going where you think

During this discussion with Reuters television the interviewee, my favourite author, displays masterful control of a hacking cough. And some stuff about tax havens too. Original here.

Cyprus: what the world’s media has missed

March 26: slightly updated, with fresh quotes and modified commentary, upon reflection. From the Tax Justice blog.

Many people have been asking us about Cyprus. Its tax haven status is central to the drama that has seen big depositors there stand to suffer large losses, while small depositors holding amounts below 100,000 Euros, who had previously been threatened…

Treasure Island Trauma: Cyprus

I do like the start to Paul Krugman’s latest New York Times column, which begins as follows:

“A couple of years ago, the journalist Nicholas Shaxson published a fascinating, chilling book titled “Treasure Islands,” which explained how international tax havens — which are also, as the author pointed out, “secrecy jurisdictions” where many rules don’t apply — undermine economies

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My Vanity Fair article on London: now online in full

I recently trailed a short online summary of my latest article on London in Vanity Fair. The full long version – rather different, I think you’ll find, from what was originally trailed – is now available online.

Here.

Offshore London and the escape from the U.S. Dodd-Frank bill

From the Treasure Islands blog:

I will introduce this blog with a comment from Michael Greenberger, a former top U.S. regulator, in a paper that looks at the Dodd-Frank bill and its (welcome and appropriate) willingness to reach U.S. financial regulation out into other jurisdictions if U.S. taxpayers are on the hook.

“Barclays has repeatedly threatened to

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My latest article in Vanity Fair

It’s on the newsstands this week. A very short summary is here.

And now, from the Daily Mail, one one of the important characters in my story, this astonishing snippet:

“Now the British property tycoon has become the proud father of twins – whom he has apparently named after two of the world’s most well-known tax havens.

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Quote of the Day – City of London and the police

From Rowan’s blog:

One of the first things we discovered was that the City and its practitioners did not like talking to detectives, and particularly detectives who were not from their own tame City Police Force.

A fine quote. (And you might ask: what is the City of London Police?) Some long discussion about his experiences, including:

“Those

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What the hell is the UK doing in its tax haven of Jersey?

Updated with commentary on commenters underneath (and note that one of the commenters appears to be an imposter claiming to be the blogger Tom Gruchy: I’ve just received a phone call about this.)

This is one in an occasional series on the widespread corruption, impunity and criminality in the Septic Isle, otherwise known as the part-British tax…