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2016 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

3. The OECD’s War on Offshore Tax Evasion 1996–2014

verfasst von : David S. Kerzner, David W. Chodikoff

Erschienen in: International Tax Evasion in the Global Information Age

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

In the late 1990s, the OECD increasingly took formal notice of a phenomenon occurring in select jurisdictions around the world that was causing serious harm to fiscal authorities (of members and non-members alike) and impeding the organization’s aims to advance global economic growth and development. This phenomenon or problem manifested itself in places where financial institutions from Europe to the Caribbean could offer bank accounts on which little or no taxes were payable by the account holders. At the heart of this problem were the jurisdictions’ strict secrecy laws that forbade, including under threat of criminal penalty, the disclosure of the account holders’ identities. This combination of low taxes and bank secrecy offered citizens and residents of OECD member countries a unique investment service that their home country could not provide (or compete with) — a place to grow their wealth and hide both assets and income from tax authorities. These “tropical investment conditions” had serious global financial, economic, and political repercussions that the OECD recognized and began to take aim at. As explained in this chapter, the cannon that the OECD constructed in 2002 to destroy tax havens’ bank secrecy laws was a single-purpose bilateral treaty known as the Agreement on Exchange of Information on Tax Matters. Automatic exchange of information (EOI) was not yet the primary focus of the OECD during the period 1996 to 2013, and is discussed in Chapter 8.

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Fußnoten
1
OECD, Agreement on Exchange of Information on Tax Matters (Paris: OECD, 2002) [treaty and commentary together: Model TIEA].
 
2
See Chapter 2, Section 3.
 
3
Enacted by Congress as part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act, Public Law 111-147, and signed into law by the president on 18 March 2010 [FATCA].
 
4
See Janet McFarland & Bill Curry, “Document Leak Reveals Widespread Use of Tax Havens” Globe and Mail (5 April 2013), online: www.​theglobeandmail.​com/​report-on-business/​economy/​document-leak-reveals-widespread-use-of-tax-havens/​article10797329/​. The estimate is from a report by James S Henry, a former chief economist with the global consulting firm McKinsey & Company. According to the article in the Globe, ibid, the top five tax haven destinations for Canadian dollars in 2011 were Barbados ($53.3 billion), the Cayman Islands ($25.8 billion), Ireland ($23.5 billion), Luxembourg ($13.8 billion), and Bermuda ($13.2 billion). These figures do not specifically break down which amounts may be attributable to funds held offshore by multinational enterprises, or directly or indirectly (e.g., through nominee entities) to undeclared accounts of individuals.
 
5
See Steven A Dean, “The Incomplete Global Market for Tax Information” (2008) 49 Boston College Law Review 605 at 637 [Dean, “Incomplete Global Market”]: Professor Dean observes that countries rely on the treaty EOI mechanism to ensure access to information “that would otherwise lie out of their reach.”
 
6
OECD, Committee on Fiscal Affairs, Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital (Paris, OECD) (loose-leaf) commentary to Art 26 at paras 1–2 [treaty and commentary together: Model Tax Treaty]. Historically, one of the four treaty models presented in a report to the League of Nations addressed the exchange of extraterritorial tax information: Double Taxation and Tax Evasion: Report Presented by the Committee of Technical Experts on Double Taxation and Tax Evasion, League of Nations, Doc C.216.M.85.1927.II (1927).
 
7
See Model Tax Treaty, above note 6, Art 26(1) and commentary to Art 26 at para 5.
 
8
See Tonny Schenk-Geers, International Exchange of Information and the Protection of Taxpayers (Alphen aan den Rijn, NL: Kluwer Law International, 2009) at 77. The focus of this work is the EOI and related laws in the European Union. Schenk-Geers, ibid at 94, observes that since the commentary to the 1963 Model Tax Treaty (Art 26 at para 3) mentions exchange to benefit “the correct implementation of the Convention, and also of the internal laws of the Contracting States,” the original intent of the EOI article was to create two separate objectives.
 
9
Model Tax Treaty, above note 6, commentary to Art 26 at paras 1–2.
 
10
Ibid, commentary to Art 26 at para 5. See Schenk-Geers, above note 8 at 94.
 
11
See Chapter 2, Section 2.​2.
 
12
Klaus Vogel, Klaus Vogel on Double Taxation Conventions, 3d ed (London: Kluwer Law International, 1997) at 1403. Professor Dean in “Incomplete Global Market,” above note 5 at 607, notes that the challenges relating to enforcement of tax laws are increased when sought-after information is foreign sourced.
 
13
See Schenk-Geers, above note 8 at 75.
 
14
See OECD, OECD’s Current Tax Agenda (Paris: OECD, 2011) at 89–90 [OECD 2011 Current Tax Agenda].
 
15
See United States, Congress, Joint Committee on Taxation, Explanation of Proposed Protocol to the Income Tax Treaty between the United States and Switzerland (Washington, DC: Joint Committee on Taxation, 2011) at 23, online: www.​jct.​gov/​publications.​html?​func=​startdown&​id=​3791.
 
16
For a more detailed description of Art 26 of the Model Tax Treaty, above note 6, see Chapter 7.
 
17
OECD, Harmful Tax Competition: An Emerging Global Issue (Paris: OECD, 1998) at 8 [OECD 1998 Report].
 
18
See Robert T Kudrle, “The OECD’s Harmful Tax Competition Initiative and the Tax Havens: From Bombshell to Damp Squib” (2008) 8 Global Economy Journal 1 at 4.
 
19
See Jinyan Li, Arthur Cockfield, & J Scott Wilkie, International Taxation in Canada — Principles and Practices, 2d ed (Markham, ON: LexisNexis, 2011) at 327. Hugh J Ault, “Reflections on the Role of the OECD in Developing International Tax Norms” (2009) 34 Brooklyn Journal of International Law 757 at 763, describes “harmful tax competition” as a circumstance “where one country’s tax system can have a potentially negative impact on those of other countries.” In 1996, the OECD ministers requested that the organization develop measures to counter the effects of harmful tax competition and report on its work in 1998 (ibid at 764). The OECD 1998 Report, above note 17, created the Forum on Harmful Tax Practices (ibid at 767). Professor Ault, ibid, refers to the recommendations of the OECD 1998 Report as, although not legally binding, a “soft” international undertaking that has created substantial peer pressure to act in accordance with the recommendations.
 
20
See OECD, The OECD’s Project on Harmful Tax Practices: The 2001 Progress Report (Paris: OECD, 2001) at 4 [OECD 2001 Progress Report].
 
21
See OECD 1998 Report, above note 17 at 7–8. See also Kudrle, above note 18 at 5, observing that the roots of the harmful tax competition project lie chiefly in EU concerns that certain forms of intra-union competition were eroding the tax bases of member states, both individual and corporate. See also OECD 2001 Progress Report, above note 20 at 4.
 
22
See OECD 2001 Progress Report, above note 20 at 4.
 
23
Ibid at 5.
 
24
See OECD 1998 Report, above note 17 at 15.
 
25
OECD, Council at Ministerial Level, Communique (21–22 May 2006) at para 15(xv), cited in Diane M Ring, “Who Is Making International Tax Policy? International Organizations as Power Players in a High Stakes World” (2009) 33 Fordham International Law Journal 649 at 704.
 
26
See OECD 2001 Progress Report, above note 20 at 4.
 
27
OECD 1998 Report, above note 17.
 
28
See Reuven S Avi-Yonah, “The OECD Harmful Tax Competition Report: A Retrospective after a Decade” (2009) 34 Brooklyn Journal of International Law 783, citing OECD, Revenue Statistics 1965–2007 (Paris: OECD, 2008) at 19 [Revenue Statistics]; Richard M Bird & Eric M Zolt, “Redistribution via Taxation: The Limited Role of the Personal Income Tax in Developing Countries” (2005) 52 UCLA Law Review 1627, arguing that the OECD effort was successful on the basis of data showing no decline in individual or corporate tax revenues in OECD member countries.
 
29
For a detailed history and discussion of the opposition to the report, and in particular that of the United States, see Ring, above note 25.
 
30
See OECD, The OECD’s Project on Harmful Tax Practices: 2006 Update on Progress in Member Countries (Paris: OECD, 2006) at 2 [OECD 2006 Report].
 
31
The OECD’s work in this area was carried out primarily through the Forum on Harmful Tax Practices, which was a subsidiary body of the Committee on Fiscal Affairs: see OECD, The OECD’s Project on Harmful Tax Practices: The 2004 Progress Report (Paris: OECD, 2004) at 4.
 
32
Ibid at 23.
 
33
Ibid at 24.
 
34
OECD 2001 Progress Report, above note 20 at 5.
 
35
Ibid.
 
36
Ibid. See Arthur J Cockfield, “Protecting Taxpayer Privacy Rights under Enhanced Cross-border Tax Information Exchange: Toward a Multilateral Taxpayer Bill of Rights” (2010) 42 University of British Columbia Law Review 420, recommending that governments consider adopting a multilateral agreement on taxpayer rights to ensure that tax information is transferred across borders with minimum standards of legal protection.
 
38
See United States, US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Staff Report on Tax Haven Banks and U.S. Tax Compliance (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 2008) at 1.
 
39
OECD 1998 Report, above note 17 at 27. Typically, in a ring-fencing situation, a jurisdiction limits tax advantages to non-residents (and also excludes resident companies), thereby protecting its own tax base from the harmful effects of its policies.
 
40
Ibid at 30–34.
 
41
Ibid at 28–29.
 
42
See OECD 2001 Progress Report, above note 20 at 5.
 
43
See Avi-Yonah, above note 28 at 785. See also Lorraine Eden & Robert T Kudrle, “Tax Havens: Renegade States in the International Tax Regime?” (2005) 27 Law and Policy 100 at 122, noting that one problem faced by the OECD was a general ambivalence among OECD members toward tax havens, based in part on pressure for national competitiveness and respect for national sovereignty.
 
44
See Avi-Yonah, above note 28 at 786. In commenting on the need for defensive measures to deal with uncooperative jurisdictions, Professor Ault, above note 19 at 771, recognizes that “establishing international norms” in some cases requires the combination of “cooperation and enforcement mechanisms.”
 
45
See Eden & Kudrle, above note 43 at 122, examining the OECD’s harmful tax competition project and arguing that tax havens were initially viewed as renegade states in the international tax community and that the combination of globalization, an increase in the number of tax havens, and the Internet was ultimately a strong motivator for international action.
 
46
See OECD 2006 Report, above note 30 at 2–3.
 
47
Ibid at 3–6.
 
48
Ibid at 6.
 
49
See Kudrle, above note 18 at 10: Professor Kudrle after conducting an economic analysis of certain tax haven data concludes that no significant impact from the project on tax evasion could be found. He theorizes that this is because investments in tax havens remain very easy to disguise and are difficult to detect.
 
50
See Ring, above note 25 at 717.
 
51
Allison Christians, “Sovereignty, Taxation and Social Contract” (2009) 18 Minnesota Journal of International Law 99. Professor Christians, ibid at 101–2, examines the OECD’s work on harmful tax competition from a political philosophy perspective to identify the existence of a global social contract for taxation and to assess its content and implications, observing that the OECD’s work “evidences an emergent vision of sovereignty that entails positive obligations or duties of nations in exercising the power to tax.”
 
52
OECD 1998 Report, above note 17 at 24.
 
53
See Kudrle, above note 18 at 5.
 
54
OECD 1998 Report, above note 17 at 15.
 
55
See OECD, Improving Access to Bank Information for Tax Purposes (Paris: OECD, 2000) at 7. Without such records of financial transactions, a tax authority may be unable to determine and collect the correct amount of tax (ibid at 9). Denying access to bank records also greatly facilitates money laundering schemes that deal with the proceeds of crime to conceal their illegal origins (ibid at 25).
 
56
See ibid.
 
57
See ibid.
 
58
See ibid at 8.
 
59
See ibid.
 
60
Ibid at 13.
 
61
As of 2011, the Global Forum included 105 member jurisdictions and the European Union: see OECD, Tax Transparency 2011: Report on Progress (Paris: OECD, 2011) at 10 [Tax Transparency 2011 Report].
 
62
See OECD 2011 Current Tax Agenda, above note 14 at 84. The 2002 Model TIEA, above note 1, includes a commentary on the agreement and provides both a bilateral and a multilateral approach to information exchange.
 
63
25 January 1988, EurTS No 127.
 
64
See OECD 2011 Current Tax Agenda, above note 14 at 84.
 
65
See Tax Transparency 2011 Report, above note 61 at 29.
 
66
See OECD, The Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, Information Brief (Paris: OECD, 2013) at 6 [Global Forum Information Brief].
 
67
Ibid.
 
68
Ibid.
 
69
Ibid.
 
70
OECD, Tax Transparency 2011 Report, above note 61 at 40. Phase 1 of the peer review process assessed the quality of a jurisdiction’s legal and regulatory framework for EOI while Phase 2 looked at the practical operation of that framework (ibid at 42).
 
71
OECD, Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, Progress Report to the G20 Leaders: Global Forum Update on Effectiveness and On-going Monitoring (Paris: OECD, 2013) at Executive Summary [G20 Progress Report]. The Global Forum’s delivery of the overall ratings was looked upon as a “watershed moment” in its evolution (ibid).
 
72
OECD, Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes Peer Reviews: Canada 2011 — Combined: Phase 1 + Phase 2 (Paris: OECD, 2011) at 8, online: http://​dx.​doi.​org/​10.​1787/​9789264110458-en. The report, ibid at 51, notes that Canada has been exchanging information under its DTC network for almost seventy years. Aspects of this report are discussed in further chapters below.
 
73
See Global Forum Information Brief, above note 66 at 4.
 
74
The list of tax havens was drawn primarily from the list compiled by Eden & Kudrle, above note 43 at Table 2 (Tax Havens and Their Linkages).
 
75
See, for example, David Voreacos, “Bank Leumi Said to Avoid Guilty Plea in Ending Tax Probe” Bloomberg (9 June 2014), online: www.​bloomberg.​com/​news/​2014-06-08/​bank-leumi-said-to-avoid-guilty-plea-in-settling-u-s-tax-probe.​html (relating to the bank’s Swiss operations).
 
76
See discussion of exception for US bank deposits and portfolio interest in Chapter 5, Section Tax Exempt Bank Deposit Interest and Portfolio Interest.
 
77
See Section 5, above in this chapter.
 
78
Ibid.
 
79
Ibid.
 
80
The Global Forum initially published compliance ratings with the individual elements of the international standards in 2013 for jurisdictions that had completed only a Phase 1 review and those that had completed Phase 1 and 2 reviews: see G20 Progress Report, above note 71 at Annex 2. The list of ratings was updated in 2014: see, for example, OECD, Report to G20 Leaders Brisbane, Australia (Paris: OECD, 2014) at Annex 4.
 
81
See note 80, above in this chapter.
 
82
See ibid.
 
83
See ibid.
 
84
Steven A Dean, “More Cooperation, Less Uniformity: Tax Deharmonization and the Future of the International Tax Regime” (2009) 84 Tulane Law Review 125 at 127 [Dean, “More Cooperation”].
 
85
See ibid at 139. As using the same language offers no assurance that tax laws will be interpreted and applied in an identical fashion, to achieve true tax harmonization, two or more nations would have to achieve a high degree of uniformity with respect to tax laws, tax rates, and the administration of those laws (ibid).
 
86
Ibid at 150.
 
87
Ibid.
 
88
Ibid at 153.
 
89
Ibid.
 
90
Ibid.
 
91
Ibid.
 
92
Ibid at 154.
 
93
Ibid at 157.
 
94
Ibid at 133.
 
95
Daniel B Thornton, “Tax-Raiding the Caymans Won’t Solve the Incentive,” Letter to the Report on Business editor, Globe & Mail (13 March 2015), online: www.​theglobeandmail.​com/​report-on-business/​rob-commentary/​rob-letters/​homework-for-economists---and-other-letters-to-the-rob-editor/​article23460086/​.
 
96
See OECD, Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (Paris: OECD, 2009).
 
97
See Global Forum Information Brief, above note 66 at para 9.
 
98
See Section 6.1, above in this chapter.
 
99
See Chapter 6, Section 2.​2.
 
100
See ibid.
 
101
For a discussion of US international tax enforcement, the Offshore Credit Card Program, and investigations of UBS, Wegelin, and CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank, see Chapter 5, Section 3.6 & 3.7.
 
102
See Chapter 5, Section 3.6.
 
103
For a discussion of US international tax enforcement concerning the Bank of Nova Scotia, UBS, Credit Suisse, Wegelin, and the Swiss banking industry, see Chapter 5, Sections 3.5 and 4.
 
104
See Sandra R Brown, “IRS & the FBAR: International Focus for U.S. Tax Compliance” (20 November 2008) [unpublished] at 4–9. Birkenfeld pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the IRS by helping UBS clients evade US reporting laws: see United States, Department of Justice, News Release 08-850, “Banker Pleads Guilty to Helping American Real Estate Developer Evade Income Tax on $200 Million” (19 June 2008), online: www.​justice.​gov/​archive/​opa/​pr/​2008/​June/​08-tax-550.​html.
 
105
For a description of FATCA and a comparison of FATCA with the Model TIEA, see Chapter 9.
 
106
Michael A Livingston, “Reinventing Tax Scholarship: Lawyers, Economists, and the Role of the Legal Academy” (1998) 83 Cornell Law Review 365 at 368. Livingston offers that the goal of tax scholarship should be to move beyond the normative focus of determining the “right” answer to tax problems under idealized and apolitical conditions — to encompass approaches (such as empirical studies, narrative projects, and an expanded normativity) that recognize that in the partisan nature of taxation, tax policy is one aspect of a broader set of political and social issues.
 
107
Diane M Ring, “The Promise of International Tax Scholarship and Its Implications for Research Design, Theory and Methodology” (2010) 55 Saint Louis University Law Journal 307 at 327–28. In commenting on Livingston’s conception of “empirical” work, Ring, ibid at 312, notes that Livingston favours the goal of gathering and analyzing relevant information in useful ways for those designing policy and that he believes a rigid adherence to highly sophisticated methodologies from the social sciences is not essential.
 
108
For most of the years from 2005 to 2014, making an appointment to expatriate at the Consulate General of the United States in Toronto required a couple of weeks’ advance notice. As of January 2016, scheduling an appointment to expatriate requires ten months’ advance notice.
 
109
See Chapter 10, discussing US voluntary disclosure programs from 2009 to 2015.
 
110
See Michael J Graetz, “Taxing International Income: Inadequate Principles, Outdated Concepts, and Unsatisfactory Policies” (2001) 54 Tax Law Review 261 at 276–325. Professor Graetz advocates that to best articulate an international tax policy, the political as well as the economic considerations and needs of the American people should be addressed.
 
111
See United States, Department of the Treasury, Model Intergovernmental Agreement to Improve Tax Compliance and to Implement FATCA (Washington, DC: US Department of the Treasury, 2012) [Model 1 IGA]; United States, Department of the Treasury, Press Release, “Treasury and IRS Issue Final Regulations to Combat Offshore Tax Evasion” (17 January 2013).
 
112
See Model 1 IGA, above note 111; United States, Department of the Treasury, Model 2 IGA, Preexisting TIEA or DTC (Washington, DC: US Department of the Treasury, 2013) [Model 2 IGA].
 
113
For a description of Automatic Exchange and an examination of the policy issues relating to the new standard, see Chapter 8.
 
114
For a description of each article in the Model TIEA, see Chapter 6.
 
115
For a description of each article in the Model 1 IGA, see Chapter 9, Section 4.
 
116
See Chapter 6, Section 3.
 
117
See Chapter 6, Section 2.​2.
 
118
See ibid.
 
119
See ibid.
 
120
See ibid.
 
121
See ibid.
 
122
See ibid.
 
123
Brian J Arnold, Reforming Canada’s International Tax System toward Coherence and Simplicity (Toronto: Canadian Tax Foundation, 2009) at 320–22.
 
124
Ibid</Emphasis>.
 
125
David Simms, “Offshore Tax Dodgers Coming under Greater Pressure” CBC News (21 February 2013, last updated 9 March 2013), online: www.​cbc.​ca/​news/​business/​taxes/​offshore-tax-dodgers-coming-under-greater-pressure-1.​1353349.
 
126
Janet McFarland, “Canadians’ Offshore Tax-Haven Holdings Rise 10 Per-cent to $170 Billion” Globe and Mail (2 May 2014), online: www.​theglobeandmail.​com/​report-on-business/​international-business/​canadians-tax-haven-holdings-rise-10-per-cent-to-170-billion/​article18400026/​.
 
127
See, for example, United Kingdom, Press Release, “New UK Multilateral Action to Combat Tax Evasion” (2 April 2013), online: www.​gov.​uk/​government/​news/​new-uk-multilateral-action-to-combat-tax-evasion, describing an agreement between the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain to develop and pilot multilateral tax information exchange under which information will be automatically exchanged between the five countries.
 
128
Switzerland entered into a new tax agreement with the United Kingdom to strengthen relations around cross-border financial services and taxation, deal with previously undeclared assets, and agree to a final withholding tax on future investment income: see Francesco Carelli, “The New Tax Agreement between Switzerland and the United Kingdom — An Analysis” (2012) 52:6 IBFD European Taxation Journal 301. Under the agreement, relevant UK resident individuals may opt for either a one-time penalty payment or the release of their account details to UK tax authorities (Carelli, ibid at 3, citing Art 5(1) of the Agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Swiss Confederation on Cooperation in the Area of Taxation, 6 October 2011, Treaties IBFD [Switzerland–UK Agreement]). Regarding the treatment of future income, relevant UK resident individuals have the option either to accept an anonymous final withholding tax remitted to the United Kingdom or to have the Swiss bank disclose income and capital gains derived from the assets to UK authorities (Carelli, ibid at 7, citing Art 19 and 22 respectively of the Switzerland–UK Agreement, ibid). Switzerland also signed a nearly identical agreement with Germany (Carelli, ibid at 1).
 
129
The United Kingdom has separately agreed to Automatic Exchange with its Crown dependencies (Guernsey, the Isle of Man, and Jersey) and some of its overseas territories (Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands): see OECD, A Step Change in Tax Transparency: OECD Report for the G8 Summit (Paris: OECD, 2013) at 6, online: www.​oecd.​org/​ctp/​exchange-of-tax-information/​taxtransparency_​G8report.​pdf.
 
130
Dean, “More Cooperation,” above note 84 at 127.
 
131
Ibid at 132.
 
132
Ibid, citing Joseph Guttentag & Reuven Avi-Yonah, “Closing the International Tax Gap” in Max B Sawicky, ed, Bridging the Tax Gap: Addressing the Crisis in Federal Tax Administration (Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2005). See also Steven A Dean, “Philosopher Kings and International Tax: A New Approach to Tax Havens, Tax Flight, and International Tax Cooperation” (2007) 58 Hastings Law Journal 911 [Dean, “Philosopher Kings”], advocating cooperation in sharing collected revenues between tax flight and tax haven jurisdictions.
 
133
Li, Cockfield, & Wilkie, above note 19 at 380: without evidence that a taxpayer is hiding income offshore, there will be no grounds for making a request, thereby complicating Canadian investigations into offshore tax evasion.
 
134
Alicja Brodzka & Sebastiano Garufi, “The Era of Exchange of Information and Fiscal Transparency: The Use of Soft Law Instruments and the Enhancement of Good Governance in Tax Matters” (2012) 52:8 IBFD European Tax Journal (Checkpoint) at 10.
 
135
See G20 Progress Report, above note 71 at Executive Summary.
 
136
See ibid.
 
137
Allison Christians, “Taxation in a Time of Crisis: Policy Leadership from the OECD to the G20” (2010) 5 Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy 19 at 27. Professor Christians, ibid, observes that although for more than a decade the United States together with other European countries framed the issue of tax evasion as an important global problem for reasons relating to economic efficiency and fairness, both in the early 1990s and again in response to the economic crisis in 2008–2009, the OECD’s stated policy goals were directed at shutting down tax havens to protect national revenue bases and address major fiscal problems that wealthy countries were experiencing as a result of the crisis.
 
138
Ibid at 19–20 and 40. Professor Christians, ibid, argues that despite the emergence of the G20 as an economic leader, the OECD remains the market leader in developing tax standards and guidelines while the G20, rather than providing developing countries with a meaningful voice in the dialogue, provides an opportunity to syndicate OECD-made policy, and further that despite the need for developing countries to play a greater role in global tax policy, such a goal will remain elusive while the OECD dominates this role.
 
139
See Chapter 6, Section 2.​2.
 
140
Kudrle, above note 18 at 10.
 
141
Niels Johannesen & Gabriel Zucman, “The End of Bank Secrecy? An Evaluation of the G20 Tax Haven Crackdown” (2014) 6:1 American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 65.
 
142
Avi-Yonah, above note 28.
 
143
Ibid at 791. Professor Avi-Yonah further notes (citing Revenue Statistics, above note 28 at 21) that individual taxes on income were 11.2 percent of GDP in 1975 and 13 percent in 2006.
 
144
Avi-Yonah, above note 28 at 791, citing Bird & Zolt, above note 28.
 
145
In 2012, individuals earning under $200,000 had a likelihood of being audited of under 3.5 percent. That figure rose to 12 percent for individuals earning over $1 million: see Tony Nitti, “What Are Your Odds of Being Audited by the IRS?” Forbes (25 March 2013), online: www.​forbes.​com/​sites/​anthonynitti/​2013/​03/​25/​what-are-your-odds-of-being-audited-by-the-irs/​#71998544727f.
 
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Metadaten
Titel
The OECD’s War on Offshore Tax Evasion 1996–2014
verfasst von
David S. Kerzner
David W. Chodikoff
Copyright-Jahr
2016
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40421-9_3