tax havens

May the Cayman Islands be so overloaded with rats it sinks

It's not enough to run a financial institution into the ground, but when a nation tries to limit executive pay, bankers scurry like rats to the Cayman Islands:

A group of 45 bankers at Barclays yesterday bypassed potential curbs on pay and bonuses by jumping ship to set up a Cayman Islands company and manage $12.3 billion of Barclays’ most toxic debt. They will be paid at least $400 million over ten years (see Commentary, facing page).

In an exotic piece of financial engineering, the bank will lend $12.6 billion to Protium, a newly created Cayman Islands-registered hedge fund, to buy the toxic assets.

What's the Deal On That Little Tax Break to Offshore Outsource your Job?

Yesterday U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced new corporate tax code change proposals:

^{Geithner's brownie point meter just gets 10!}

Obama to Crack Down on Tax Evasion?

This should be fun. The incoming Obama administration has eyed a new revenue source to help defray some of the budget shortfall.

Cracking down on offshore tax havens.

President-elect Barack Obama plans to crack down on international tax havens, including Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, within weeks of taking power in January, putting him on a collision course with Gordon Brown.

There is growing international pressure to outlaw the secretive practices of tax havens as a key part of reforms to the world's battered financial system, as the leaders of the world's 20 most powerful economies gather for a major conference in Washington next weekend....

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