"Plenty of quite sensible suggestions are now circulating about what triggered

the worst financial crisis since 1929 and what will have to be done to avoid

future crises. They include improved regulation of rating agencies, an

approval procedure for new financial products (‘financial MOT’) and the

banning of off-balance-sheet special purpose companies.

At the same time, in what is apparently a completely unconnected move, the

German Federal Government has started to look for better ways of combating

tax avoidance in tax havens such as Switzerland and Liechtenstein, as well as

Panama and Singapore. In this respect, it has remained largely unremarked

that the inadequate regulation of actors on the financial markets and tax

avoidance are two sides of the same coin: for both presuppose the existence

of tax havens that, apart from low taxes, offer an environment where, to a

large extent, regulators deliberately refrain from intervening.

‘The

development of the current credit crisis in the financial sector would have

been impossible without offshore centres,’ as the non-governmental

organisation (NGO) Tax Justice Network put it in a statement for a hearing of

the Treasury Committee of the lower house of the British parliament."

to read the 15-page pdf article "Trillions Down the Drain" published in: Blatter fur deutsche und internationale Politik 3/2009, click on

http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Troost-Liebert_tax_havensfinancial_crisis.pdf