LONDON – A new study from advocacy group Tax Justice Network reveals thatSwitzerland is the world’s most-corrupt country, with a “high secrecy scoreof 76.” It’s followed by the US and the Cayman Islands.
“Switzerland is the grandfather of the world’s tax havens, one of theworld’s largest offshore financial centers, and one of the world’s biggestsecrecy jurisdictions or tax havens,” said the group’s report ‘FinancialSecrecy Index — 2018 Results’link>.
It explained that “the Swiss will exchange information with rich countriesif they have to, but will continue offering citizens of poorer countriesthe opportunity to evade their taxpaying responsibilities.
“These factors, along with ongoing aggressive pursuit of financial sectorwhistleblowers (resorting at times to what appear to be non-legal methods)are ongoing reminders of why Switzerland remains the most important secrecyjurisdiction in the world today,” said the report.
The index ranks countries for the assistance their legal systems provide tomoney-launderers, and to all people who seek to protect corruptly-obtainedwealth. The higher the secrecy score, the more corrupt the government is.
In order to create the index, a secrecy score is combined with a figurerepresenting the size of the offshore financial services industry in eachcountry.
According to the report, the United States’ secrecy score (60) is rising,which results in attracting corrupt wealth. In 2013, the US was in thesixth place, and in 2015 it took the third in the rating.
“The continued rise of the US in the 2018 index comes off the back of asignificant change in the US share of the global market for offshorefinancial services. Between 2015 and 2018 the US increased its market sharein offshore financial services by 14 percent,” said the report. In totalthe US accounts for 22.3 percent of the global market in offshore financialservices.
“The US provides a wide array of secrecy and tax-free facilities fornon-residents, both at a Federal level and at the level of individualstates.”
The report added that “Financial secrecy provided by the US has causeduntold harm to the ordinary citizens of foreign countries, whose eliteshave used the United States as a bolt-hole for looted wealth.”
Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, Germany, Taiwan, theUnited Arab Emirates, and Guernsey closed out the top-10 most corruptcountries.
The least corrupt nations among the 112 covered in the rating were SanMarino, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Montserrat.
The countries with the lowest secrecy score were UK (42) and Slovenia (42),Belgium (44), Sweden (45), Lithuania (47), Italy (49) and Brazil (49).