Just back in November 2013, Bermuda emerged from the black list of tax havens established by France in January 2014. This turnaround would of, according to Bercy, a favorable response to the transparency requirements of the country.
Bermuda, dream destination for offshore.
Bermuda is actually a dream destination especially for captive insurance companies that it to say subsidiaries of large companies that create itself their own insurance to cover their industrial and commercial risks rather than passing through specialized insurance in London, Zurich, New York, for example. They are likely to settle there after obtaining a license. But Bermuda is in high demand by individuals who want to establish their main residence for tax on individuals is very light in this country. It was only after spending six months on the blacklist that Bermuda (and Jersey) were recognized as “laundered” by Paris. Yet it is difficult to assess in the space of six months the tax cooperation between the two countries. It seems that political or financial lobby intervened on the subject.Especially since in a joint statement by Elisabeth Guigou and Christian Eckert, it was stated that “in light of recent work of the Global Forum on Transparency organized following the Jakarta meeting under the auspices of the OECD, such withdrawal is not justified, since neither Jersey nor Bermuda have obtained an overall rating justifying the withdrawal. “And actually many banks like BNP Paribas and Societe Generale have subsidiaries there in large numbers, in the same way that the Total Group. In addition, the taxes that were to be applied to the capital that has been transferred, both by individuals and by companies, to this destination have not been.
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However Paris defends himself justifying that adequate safeguards have been made. Yet some analysts believe that Bermuda is one of the most important places for international finance with rules facilitating the opacity of financial flows. This is the case with the creation of trusts that can keep secret the identities of account owners in Bermuda. Finally, as there is no tax levy on companies in these islands, catches insurance are regularly fed by transferring funds from the profits of multinationals and which, thus escape taxes entirely.For Markus Meinzer, it is just a “tax diplomacy.” Countries put these tax havens blacklist, they respond by giving cooperation on some issues, so that the countries removed them from the blacklist of tax havens. But there is no indication that these tax havens do not, thereafter, return to an even greater opacity. In the meantime, this ad may have had a perverse effect: in making their advertising, these tax havens will receive even more newcomers. It remains to this day eight countries on the blacklist of France. We bet that Bermuda does not give ideas to new countries to take advantage of a new international respectability.
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