In a few years the planet was populated by tiny "anti-state" where the wealth of nations of Adam Smith is suctioned with increasingly powerful and sophisticated forms of pumping.
Tax havens became inherent to Capitalism system in its last and final path. As in the Middle Ages, the rentier classes have been exonerated from paying taxes. Big business and the rich no longer contribute anything to the maintenance of public institutions that depend only on the VAT and income tax of those who can not evade.
A one day raid in Cayman Islands would produce a massive capture: bankers, oil men, famous showmans, corrupt politicians, ... amiably mixed with mobsters, thugs, kleptocrats, white slavers, arms dealers, dictators, torturers, ... the true elite of the planet.
Christian De Brie: "The offshore havens, like Dracula, fear the light ... Who will sent these "paradises" to hell? "
Dani Rodrik, Harvard political economist: "In a globalized world, the interest rate is set in New York, the real wage in Shanghai and income tax in the Cayman Islands."
A German police: "Organized crime is a capitalism more acute" (dossier ATTAC)
Tax haven are in the phone book
The offshore havens are absolutely legal and therefore maintain internet portals where they freely offer their services to customers. You type "offshore banking" in Google and the third entry is:
"Panama Offshore Legal - Offshore Asset Protection Services
There are a number of factors one must look for when setting up a secure asset protection structure. The tax-free status of the jurisdiction being used is always a major consideration. The anonymity of the corporations and foundations is also important.
The availability of quality banks covered by bank secrecy laws is of paramount importance. Attorney client privilege is something to never be taken lightly and the protection must be tight.
Don't make the mistake of using jurisdictions that used to be good but in recent years have compromised their secrecy and privacy. Click here to read more about asset protection."
A law firm will create a shell company (trust or trust). In exchange for a few hundred or thousands of euros, according to the paradise, a legal representation and a numbered account is achieved. Shipments to the ghost company account wil be made through financial gateways, country to country, from account to account, to clear the money trail. You have to complete an online form and soon you're anabled to evade taxes, hide black money, assets that could be jeopardized by insolvencies, real estate bites, etc.
In the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal there are published ads such International Company Services or Scope International, for a few hundred pounds or $, offers registration in your name (ICS), or for your company in the Bahamas, Gibraltar , Jersey, ... They offer services such as "fictitious names of shareholders and directors of the company" or "proxies" - real people hired as managers or shareholders of the companies, just in case, sign an "internal" document that is up to the evader, which specified the date (blank) in which all business is transferred to their real masters - assistance to open bank accounts or "facilitate firms from third parties, the movements are registered in his name "and for a modest plus we provide a kind of complete "Comanche" set for the new company: stamps with the company name, stock certificates, certificates of incorporation, a manual ... entitled "Save your fortune from unfair taxes" credit cards that leave no trace and finally even a set of "camouflage passports"".
It would be difficult to locate your laundry in Jersey but if you are a dot.com can hardly will resist the succulent conditions offered by certain tax havens: online betting (in Costarrica NASA operates the largest online gambling center in the world), an online bank ( Luxembourg Lebanese Byblos Bank, Altamira International Bank of Barbados, the European Union Bank in Antigua & Barbuda, ...), online payment systems like First Atlantic Commerce in Bermuda, etc.
Amount of its operations: In 2007 the British Virgin Islands invested more in China than Japan or the US. Mauritius was by long the largest investor in India in the same year that 47% of foreign investment in France came from a tax haven.
Fortis, a multinational banking and insurance Company, based in the Benelux, holds about 300 establishments "offshore", Fortis Intertrusts (BVI), Fortis Investment Management (Cayman Islands), Fortis Private Wealth Managment (Netherlands Antilles) etc. and using camouflage names: JEB Ltd (Liberia), Comanche Ltd (Bahamas), Jasmette Valley Inc (Liechtenstein) Swilken Holdigns (Panama), ... and so on a ten pages list according to the Center for Reaserch on Multinational Corporations.
Multinationals turn to the strategy of the spinning top. This is the "corporate inversion" or to turn up down the company. The parent company is moved to a tax haven - which will not pay income taxes - and what remains in the original territory become mere "affiliates" with losses. Accenture Ltd., Tyco International Ltd., Foster Wheeler Ltd., Inglesol Rand, McDermott International, Inc., are examples.
How a tax haven work?
Tax havens are a specially designed environment to deposit, save, invest or recover bad or evaded money by CEOs, dictators, drug dealers, organ traffickers, etc. They enjoy a sophisticated advisory service, tax lawyers, auditing firms and, of course, branches of the "legal" banking system specialized in this type of operations. They enjoy bank secrecy, commercial secrecy, administrative and registry secrecy while the administration of the tax haven rejects any kind of mutual assistance, cooperation or exchange of information with other administrations.
Companies or individuals constitute societies, "foundations", trusts, etc. with tax residence in one of those territories and proceed to move their money or financial assets.
The "trust" is a flagship of Jersey fiscal Paradise (called the rock of billionaires, 20 km off Normandy, as a "Crown Dependencie", it is not part of the UK or the EU). This status allows you to steal taxes, etc. by registering under a false name. Formally, the money does not belongs to you, but in practice it is all yours. The advantages of wealth without its drawbacks.
To send money to a tax haven, legally or illegally, the first step is to hire a lawyer in that country. If it all is just a "tax evasion" it is likely that the lowyer ask bank references and identity documents to avoid problems. In any case, the lawyer creates a society in the country and acts as head in front of the authorities to manage the money received by the society.
Should the client be a criminal, this company will be constituted as a 'front company', a false mirror to mislead police investigators. Most likely, this "company" will receive numerous cash deposits in small amounts. Thanks to internet, money can come from anywhere in the world from many accounts of bogus companies run by straw men.
Every day are becoming more common trusts designed to protect the founder against lawsuits from its own country (Asset Protection Trust). They include the "escape clause" which involves the immediate transfer to other tax havens in case of threat of research or communication of opening a process.
The "proxies"
The "proxies" constitute a second layer of protection. If an inspection or a journalist gets to skip the traditional obstacles raised by the tax havens to conceal the identity of the real owner of the funds or the shell company they found that the "president" and the "owners" in the documents are " proxies ", ie, lawyers, agents, ... or companies created by" proxies ". The proxies signed an (internal) undated document by transferring the shares to their real owners. You can even "drive" the shell company through an empowerment by the proxy, without appear in any kind of document of the company.
A further guarantee is the signature, by the proxy, of a document of resignation with blank date according to which all acts from that date on are null.
Tax Havens for campanies: transfer pricing
Evaders are not just individuals. Most of evasion is carried out by companies through various techniques based on the system of "transfer prices"designed to emerge profits in tax havens and losses in the country of origin. The company "sells" at low prices to an ad hoc intermediary company (so the profits of this operation are low or zero). Then the intermediary (a subsidiary in a tax haven) sells at full price pocketing the profits taxed at 0.01%.
Similar operations occur when companies attribute most of their earnings to service subsidiaries in tax havens.
Transactions related to transfer pricing to evade taxes accounts for half of all international trade. Grand Cayman, a transfer pricing center, turns out to be the second most important trading partner of Brazil.
Every major country has "its" own havens. India is being bled by Mauritius. Russian oligarchs operate through Cyprus, Switzerland, Jersey and the Isle of Man.
The oil company Repsol YPF has established twenty subsidiaries in tax havens (Bermuda, Cayman Islands, ...)
Specialized tax havens
. Andorra and Monaco are specialized in asset management for wealthy individuals. Numbered accounts and total secrecy.
. Bermuda specialize in reinsurance operations, and especially of called "captive insurers", because they provide services to a group of companies as subsidiaries of the parent company. Paradise lax legislation requires less reserves and insurance premiums are not taxed.
. Bahamas, Liberia, Malta and Panama formerly, specialize in the FOC to record oil tankers or cargo of toxic waste ships, with no controls on the safety of the ship and without labor standards for the crews.
. Cayman Islands: Specialized in CEOs accounts and shell companies. Zero taxes. Directors of companies registered there need not be residents and their accounts can not be audited. 544 international banks are home to some 420,000 million dollars in deposits, and have registered more than 30,000 companies. The minimum bank deposit required is around US $ 10,000 and five times more, if denominated in other currency. To establish a trust a minimum fund worth US $ 250,000 are required. The Cayman Islands are the home of 80% of hedge funds.
The Cayman Islands are not really a country but a financial company disguised as "country". More than 12,000 "companies" are operated from a single building known as Ugland House, headquarters of the firm Maples & Calder.
The "laws" of the Cayman Islands prevent these firms of any operation within its territory except, of course, accumulate assets and benefits without label. They hold the 5th worldwide in bank deposits with a figure of $ 2 trillion.
But overall the trend is to merge or grouping many services in offshore multiservice centers such as Singapore which has become the Asian Switzerland.
Competition between tax havens
They compete to attract capital. To see who offers better security, secrecy, taxes, etc. Jersey imposed a rate of "10%" to corporate profits and the Isle of Man reduced its rate to "0%". Jersey reacted by lowering its level of taxation to zero while maintaining 10% only for local financial services companies. The difference in revenue was offset by the creation of a kind of tax on consumption and the "non-financial" services of the island. He also created a new type of company (shell company) that allows, from $ 1 million to speculate in risky markets without control or supervision. An appropiate bait for hedge funds.
Round triiping
Capital that flees a country can then go back, honorably, in the form of foreign direct investment (IMF defines up to 12 different varieties), once it has been "restructured" (wash) in a specialized tax havens specialiced in this type of operations. The phenomenon has reached impressive dimensions in the case of China where 30 to 40% of foreign equity investments come from this traffic laundering and tax evasion. Chinese law allows its companies be filed in Muricio Island, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands or the Cayman Islands.
Global Financial Integrity estimated at more than $ 120 billion the annual "round-tripping" between Russia and Cyprus, through which Russian money is laundered as deposits in the Cyprus tax haven and then reinvested in Russia.
Tax Havens: How the illicit money is washed?
A series of successive operations are performed: placing, acumulation, integration, centrifuging between each and the final bleaching.
1. Placement or prewashing is to move money and currency from acquisition place to financial establishments on different places, spread over multiple accounts.
This operation does not require suitcases full of bank notes; banks help move the funds to tax havens. According to Eduard Guroff, German tax fraud fical, in Liechtenstein evasion is done through simple transfers. "A bank, for example, collect in an account 10 million from several customers in Germany and sent it to Liechtenstein as if they were their own, without names. Months later, sends a note explaining who each part belongs. The bank in Liechtenstein then creates a numbered foundation for each customer . As only the bank and the client know who is the foundation owner, the system is easy, clean and opaque to the treasury. "
2. Stack, or mixture which makes it impossible to rewind the wire to the source of illicit profits: multiplication of transfers between accounts in various banks located in tax havens, .... and conversion of funds in investments securities and channeled to various financial markets using clearing houses such as Clearstream in Luxembourg or Euroclear in Brussels.
3. Integration: Finally, the last stage, and again using Clearstream or Euroclear, integration and legal reappearance of blanched capital, regrouped in naw visible bank accounts, and prepared for use in a totally legal form.
That is, clearing firms act as centrifuge machines throughout the all the process to phase in various stages of washing the "dirt" of the badly earned money.
The same washing and bleaching techniques and the same circuits are also used for covert management of the fortunes of corrupt rulers, embezzlement of public funds, fortunes achieved by insiders, the black money of sports or showbiz, fraud tax, illegal financing of political parties, payment of kickbacks on government contracts, money from the mafia, the drug, the business of trafficking, the trade in organs, newborns, slave, etc.
The deregulated financial system has become a global giant washing machine. A growing part of the funds managed by "markets" come from illegal, tax evasion and prevarication, which placed here and there will whiten in exchange for succulent bonus entering senior executives of financialization traffic.
Organized crime and financial centers press together and converge on the removal of regulations and controls. The synergies between the two groups intersect and overlap as "markets" become the arbiters of permanent global depression.
Financial services tax havens
The tax haven that want to attract this netherworld offers a range of shady appropriate "financial" services:
Plots in "technological parks"with equipment and perfect logistics, particularly in computer-electronic facilities allowing free access in real time to all world markets, and guaranteed correspondence with large banking networks, usually represented in the same place. Thus, the Spanish government had to grant some 100,000 fixed lines in 2002 to Gibraltar phone so he could be reconverted into a competitive tax haven serving real estate and mafias of the Costa del Sol.
Facilities to attract a mass of unscrupulous lawyers, economists, financiers, brokers, accountants, auditors, tax advisers, ... to offer assistance, expertise, arbitration, legal and accounting local management to customers.
Security and political stability; weak (or no) repression of financial crime, and weak (or no) international cooperation.
Banking secrecy against any criminal investigation, absence of exchange control, right to establish any form of society, real or fictional, with guaranteed anonymity for participants; tax exemption or symbolic imposition.
Virtual tax havens
The boom that have registered tax haven countries as Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Panama, etc. has led to a proliferation. The ultimate in this field are tax havens located in virtual countries such as The Dominion de Melchizedek or the Kingdom of Enenkio, who claims to be located in Micronesian atolls, but thanks to its operations online it "work" with the same effectiveness or more than their material counterparts, in a world where virtuality is a rising star.
Tax havens and clearing houses: Clearstream, Euroclear.
In fact, if there would be the political will to do so, the control of capital movements is technically very simple.
Currently 99% of monetary transactions and securities (shares, bonds ...) are electronic records that at the end the day involve balances in favor or against the owner. These adjustments of currency and securities are made through SWIFT and CHPIS networks converge into two or three companies of international clearing: CLEARSTREAM in Luxembourg and Euroclear in Belgium.
These companies keep a record of each and every one of the operations carried out and, contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of transactions in criminal funds also go through these records, ie, by the formal financial system.
Thus the financial system has simplified processes so that it works fine with very few and simple mechanisms.
But on the other hand under the 80s R.Reagan and M.Thatcher deregulation, a complex legal structures tangle (related to the new financial "products", trust companies and offshore havens) financial markets have become an opaque landscape in which to navigate without worrying about the existing legal obligations in the parent country.
Denis Robert unmasked the shebang and suffered the consequences:
"It requires that a Clearstream senior be dismissed for that we learn about the operations of Banco Ambrosiano, Bank Menatep and Russian mafias, illegal commissions for sales of french ships or illegal CIA operations in Iran; it requires that someone pull out a DVD of Liechtenstein with data on billions of euros evaded from Germany, Italy, USA or Spain".
"All financial transactions are recorded and this information is centralized and stored in large fiancial stores. Clearstream, Euroclear and Swift, with branches and customers around the world, have become, thanks to the microchip and the progress of technology information, the essential tools of globalization.
Clearstream and Euroclear are the traffic managers in the global village, the transport companies of financial capitalism, their cash registers are their control towers. All banks in the world and multinational companies are permanently connected to their networks and use them to move, buy, sell, cheat, steal, hide and disappear. SWIFT records and transmits transfer orders from bank to bank. iIf you are in Italy as a tourist and rent a car, by using your credit card, the transaction is transmitted by SWIFT network who charges your account and credits the account of the rental company.
Clearstream and Euroclear, meanwhile, organize cross-border trade in stocks and bonds, guarantee the solvency of customers, offset exchanges, made cash transfers to pay operations and act as custodians of much of the titles."
Naw paying taxes is a voluntary matter for businesses and the wealthy
The ability of evasion is total. Today gains from property sales or stock trading, inheritances and legacies, ..., any kind of profit could be attributed to trusts or foundations subsidiaries located in offshore centers so that paying taxes is a voluntary matter for companies and the rich. The full weight of tax collection of states is via VAT or income tax only for those who can not evade.
To return dirty money to the legal circulation evaders and smugglers enjoy the invaluable assistance of bank clearing (Clearstream, Euroclear) that filter dirt from operations, and allow deposit accounts, ready to spend the money free of impurities.
Witn offshore havens large corporations enjoy a whole set of advantages: avoiding change control within the own country or evade currency convertibility. Other times, the aim is to centralize the financial management of the company (Enron). They are used for commercial brokerage operations and chargeback (transfer pricing) or to install captive insurance companies aimed to self-insurance operations. The most common operation however is the investment through holding companies so that profits are taxed in the tax haven.
Absolute freedom for capital movements worldwide, and electronic communication, allow operations to be performed from any office of a bank or a corporation. The isolation of Liechtenstein in the Alps, with no airport or railway station is not an obstacle to their operations. Transactions are simple electronic notes between different entities. The "paper" (securities or documents) are deposited at the source and "notarial" records in the clearing and settlement system (Clearstream).
The tax haven of London
The main backer of the system of tax havens is the financial center of London.
With weak or no taxation for non-residents (200,000 non-residents are exempt from tax: City financiers, footballers, singers, ...), banking secrecy, professional secrecy, simplified registration procedure, complete freedom for capital movement, supported by a solid financial structure, good brand image and a dense network of bilateral agreements with other tax havens, London has become a key part of the financial derivatives industry becoming the haven and operations base of hedge funds.
Tax havens and financial crisis
For decades it has been its existence that has generated a suicidal regulatory and tax competition between jurisdictions that has led most governments to cut taxes and deregulate at all costs. Lax or null "offshore"regulation has created a systemic infection, poisoning "onshore" regulations in a hasty run "down to the bottom" applauded by the neoliberal forums as the most important pillar of economic growth.
Contagion has spread from places like the Cayman Islands to places like Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Ireland. In the US, a state of the union, Delaware, provides foreign capital the same "profits" tax and regulatory that any tropical turtle island. Netherlands has become a haven for rock bands and record companies because Netherland do not taxe "royalties".
Actual complex corporate structures are opaque creatures that could not have been engendered anywhere else. They are artificially divided across multiple jurisdictions so that any notion is lost of where is rally parked the risk. This competition for capital has overheated speculation boilers so that everything has blown up.
The shadow banking system, permanent threat to the global financial system, would never have been possible without OFCs. All entities of some entity had and have hundreds of establishments in tax havens where they organize their undercapitalized and deleveraged operations , regardless of regulations and taxes, failed operations that are costing outrageous public bailouts.
Tax havens and tax regression
According to a Justice Network report (2005), private fortunes in tax havens amounted to a figure of $ 11.5 trillion that would generate an annual income of $ 0.86 trillion tax free. If these taxes were counted they would add $ 0.255 trillion.
This has resulted in an increasing tax reversal as governments are constrained to raise indirect taxes, taxes burden almost exclusively for the non-rich, and postponement of infrastructure investment and redistributive social spending .
Justice Network for 2005A powerful magnet that absorbs huge public funds and forces to lower taxation on companies and the wealhty. .They are true parasites that progressively weaken the health of nations.
Paradises "off world"
Dubai, on the Pirates Coast, former refuge for pirates, smugglers and traffickers, has become by the clever hand of emir Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum a multifunctional tax haven. It is not only a center for money laundering on a large scale, but has become an international financial center, a tourist and residential paradise for wealthy people, a safe haven for gangsters, kleptocrats and terrorists, free taxes and 100% foreign ownership processing zones, ..., and the most impressive real state bubble ever dreamed.
Burj tower (buble?) Dubai and its tween of SarumanThe huge skyscrapers, artificial residential islands, airports, etc., build by forced labor immigrants deportable to the slightest complaint, and "invisible" to the wealthy elite public except for taxi drivers, maids or prostitutes.
It is the dream of neoliberalism come true, "the apotheosis of neo-liberal values of contemporary capitalism." A world of luxury, waste and unbridled lust, speculation without limits, without taxes, without political parties, served by a proletariat without holidays, without pay, without consumption, no unions, no papers, no nights, invisible, in permanent debt bondage state, repatriable a whim, reproduced in another galaxy "... A perfect "off world " for the XXI century.
Tax havens, powerhouses of criminal-capitalism
In depressed economic conditions mafia business thrive. As entire sectors succumb to the crisis, the mafia control and their income grows exponentially.
Tax havens are a specially designed mechanisms to recycle short-term funds regardless of the source. In situations of lack of liquidity - liquidity trap - a desperate hunt for short-term capital occurs, wherever they come from. Banks and other businesses in distress come unabashedly in search of fresh money from the mafia, via tax havens.
Tax evasion, money laundering, drugs and arms , human beings trafficking, extortion, production and marketing of counterfeit currency, theft, fraud and smuggling of all kinds, ... a volume of business that already around 40% of the world "legal" economy thanks to tax havens.
Tax havens are at the root of corruption and the increasing poverty in poor countries. Oil revenues from Nigeria, Congo, Guinea, etc., is systematically diverted and attracted by these specialized in protecting deregulated fraud and illegal accumulation magnets , leaving the local population mired in abject misery.
Tax havens, hubs and catalysts of globalization
Tax havens are inherent in the system in its last and most destructive journey. They are their hubs. Any transaction, any business of a certain size pass through them. Today's globalized world, in advanced stages of criminal penetration, would not be understood without them. Suppress tax havens would mean literally terminate capitalism. Therefore all media or official talks against them is pure demagogic fallacy. Tax havens are here to stay.
Finally Capital in its pure form, detached from his dark and gruesome origins, washed the blood, exploitation, fraud, theft and extortion that generated it, can to roam and is welcomed and pampered everywhere. From Gibraltar to Isle of Man, Monaco to Liechtenstein, through Clearstream. Tax havens inflame and lubricate financial markets.
Tax havens and underdevelopment
About 50% of assets in Latin America are invested in tax havens. In the Middle East the percentage is 70%. The losses for developing countries are estimated at $ 500,000 million per year (5 times the total amount of development aid). Given the precarious tax system in many poor countries, tax evasion is especially severe.
The fight (sic!) Against tax havens
The European Commission looks away. The "European Constitution" could not be sneaked with a referendum but was imposed anywhere by force (simple Lisboa Treaty, without de bombastic "constitutional" title) abounds more and more on deregulation for capital while Luxembourg (Clearstream) and Belgium (Euroclear) have become the centrifuge laundering machines of the world dirty money.
In Germany there have been many scandals for tax evasion but under the Treaty of Lisbon, the consent of all 27 member states of the EU is needed to change the actual 2005 EU Fiscal directive on the protection of banking secrecy. (The directive is like "Swiss cheese, full of holes," say tax experts.)
After the outbreak of the Liechtenstein case, the European Commission criticized Spain measures against evasion of capital to Liechtenstein and recommended "avoiding disproportionate measures" in the investigation.
Rules governing taxation policy 2005 affect interests, but not dividends. In addition they apply to individuals, but not foundations (Klaus Zumwinkel, chairman of Deutsche Post in its recently discovered large-scale tax fraud used fundations). Tax havens quickly adapted to the soft policy. There are more than 50.000 Foundations (stieftung) in Liechtenstein in a country of 35,000 inhabitants.
The Principality of Liechtenstein has more than twice companies than citizens. 35,000 citizens and 80,000 companies, many of which reported as address a post office box . Local law allows the establishment of foundations for private purposes. The tax on this capital is a derisory 0.1 percent upon capital less than two million francs; if such amount is increased, the rate is reduced to 0.075 percent and if the amount exceeds 10 million francs, the tax burden almost disappears: is 0.005 percent (reverse tax progressivity).
A Spanish citizen instructs LGT Group the creation of a foundation. A Spanish office will be the mediate agent. Liechtenstein LGT will place employees on the boards of the foundations to leave no trace of the transfers, LGT Group provides intermediary companies, Special Purpose Vehicles, etc.
Tax havens and actual capitalism
All this is no secret. This is not something marginal. What for the liberal capitalism of the 80s was a "necessary slip" that lubricated the functioning of the system has become a monstrous degeneration that determines the current operation of the system.
Faced with criticism everywhere the G7 created in 2000 the Financial Action Task Force against money laundering (FATF) which in practice was a real jinx, giving, after studies and various assessments, approval of "respectable financial centers" to real Turtle islands as Cayman Islands, Jersey, etc. Later OECD joined the whitening process of offshore centers so that in 2004 only Andorra, Liberia, Liechtenstein and the Marshall Islands were "tax havens". The rest apparently were true prodigal sons returning to the law.
Spanish tax havens and spanish banking
Banking that one can find in tax havens is created, managed and continuously used by the big American and European banks, and, of course, the Spanish banks.
Large companies such as Telefonica, have installed holding companies in the British Virgin Islands. Santander and BBVA, have management investment funds firms in Bahamas, Jersey, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, Virgin Islands and Netherlands Antilles.
La Caixa, Banco Popular, Sabadell, etc., all have their section of offshore companies, competition imposes. Caja Sur established in Cayman Eurocapital Finance Ltd, which issued preferred stock whose dividends were exempt from taxes. Then Eurocapital Finance Ltd "lent" to Caja Sur the money deposited so that it could continue adding fuel to the housing bubble.
In 2004, according to annual reports submitted to the Spanish shareholders, 11% of the companies in the BBVA group were based in tax havens, La Caixa group 10%, 15% Sabadell group. Santander and BBVA are among the 50 banks with more assets abroad (in positions 37 and 47 respectively).
The Financial Action Group reported in 2006 that the Spanish legislation does not establish any prohibition to have relations with screen societies. Neither the Spanish Government has an estimate on screen companies serving Spanish companies in tax havens.
If money is Barbuda, Bahamas or Cayman, banks are behind it. Santander (SCH) has more than hundred "consolidated" societies (their accounts are added to the accounts of the parent) based in tax havens and can boast of having managed the funds of the Pinochet family during their most bitter days through the Coutts USA Internacional, owned by SCH.
Currently BBVA controls the second largest bank in Colombia and the first of Mexico and holds leading positions in 14 other countries in the region, where is the first group in insurance and pension plans. It is, by many accounts, one of the most efficient washing machines of American drug trafficking.
In May 2007, the magazine Capital noted a list of 27 BBVA known companies based in tax havens such as Jersey, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg and Switzerland.
In 2002 the National Court and the Spanish anti-corruption prosecutor investigated dark transactions linked to the Expo 92 in Seville that would lead them to BBV Privanza and a vast international plot: Colombia, Puerto Rico, Panama, Jersey Islands, Grand Cayman, Switzerland, Mexico ( Probursa), Peru (Continental), Venezuela (Provincial), the United States (Bank of New York) and even to Chile and Cuba. In total a network in 13 countries. In 2007 the court declared the nullity of the proceedings and filed the case because of "absence of injured".
BBV operated a "B box", opened in 1987 in Jersey and expanded in 1991 to Liechtenstein, with 224 million euros invested in 22 pension funds on behalf of former directors of BBV, members of the country economic elite, among which was included the then President Emilio Ybarra. Bank CEOs where seeking freedom of action outside shareholders control to get exorbitant pensions for themselves. In the end the case was also filed.
Caja España, like other financial institutions exhibited their own company "Caja España de Invbersiones Finance Limited", established in the offices of Maples And Calder, lawyers in the Cayman Islands (Ugland House, South Church Street, PO Box 309 ).
Gescartera (advised by BBVA?) Also used Jersey where he had installed the SPV Stock Selection for camouflaging the gains of their unfortunate clients.
More than half of companies in the IBEX-35 have subsidiaries in tax havens according to the ORSC.
The SICAVs, tax havens within Spain
They are investment funds so that the rich that do not want to pay taxes, do not have to "expatriated" their capitals. Here in Spain (in a Spanish bank) as a SICAV, you can legally avoid taxes. The Sicav are joint stock companies and its theoretical action field is the collective investment activity. Many Spanish SICAVs (Capital Variable Investment companies ) are domiciled in Luxembourg.
These are clearly schemes by the banks offered to the rich to place their capital and "legally" evade taxes. To maintain the fallacy that it is a society of "collective" investment creating a Sicav legally requires a minimum of 100 participants and a minimum capital of € 2,400,000. Are the same banks that organized fraud by providing the 99 shareholders who are missing, the trick is based on bringing together different customers with the same interests according to the scheme: "I will help you to build your company, and you help me me to ride mine. " Of the 2.4 million evaded you must just spend a few thousands to participate as a shareholder of the "friends" Sicavs.
The authorization of a Sicav corresponds to the CNMV that usually turn a blind eye to such dealings. The profits obtained by these companies are taxed at 1% in corporation tax in front of the 35% or more to pay in the IRPF (Personal Income Tax).
Andorra, a tax haven
In Andorra, usual place of pilgrimage of athletes, jet set, and wealthy Spanish. The Spanish banks assets controlled up to five banks there Credit Andorrà, Banc Internacional d'Andorra, Caixa Bank and Banc Sabadell d'Andorra.
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The transformation into a tax haven has been a boost for the business concentration. In 2001 Banca Reig and Banc Agrícol merged. A year later the company was born Andbanc, wholly owned by Andorran capital while Crèdit Andorrà announced the purchase of CaixaBank Andorra -the subsidiary of La Caixa- for 356 million euros.
In March 2006 Banco Internacional Banca Mora (BIBM) bought BBVA de Andorra for 395 million euros. In September of the same year La Caixa sold its stake in Credit Andorrà for € 927 million.
Integration in July 2007 of Banco Internacional Banca Mora (BIBM), Banc Agrícol Reig and Andbanc to form the Andbanc Group Mora, involved the largest corporate transaction ever made in Andorra and allowed the creation of the most powerful banking group in terms of resources managed, collaborators and results. With 500 employees the new group (data from 2006) has a volume of social assets of 5,480 million euros, a credit investment of 2,315 million and customer funds of 14,340 million.
With regard to business volumes, the bank has 16,655 million, of which 604 correspond to equity. The group has branches in Switzerland, Mexico, Panama, Brazil and the Bahamas and operates like a giant evasion funnel of Catalan and northern Spain capital.
More information: Blog de Luis Ordóñez Gonçalves
Reporting Project (Crimen organizado países del este)
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Javier González: Paraísos fiscales, escondrijos de una cuarta parte de la riqueza mundial
