Michael Hudson: Push against offshore secrecy an uphill battle

Big players are taking unprecedented steps to stop offshore abuses, but financial crime fighters worry reforms don’t go far enough

By Michael Hudson, 8:00 am, November 20, 2013 Updated: 8:06 am, November 20, 2013
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.