The second edition of the Financial Secrecy Index was published yesterday by the Tax Justice Network. The index scores and ranks 73 jurisdictions according to their level of banking secrecy. This year’s ranking shows that some OECD and EU members are among the most secretive jurisdictions.
Studies accompanying the index also show that recent efforts to reduce secrecy in the so-called tax havens have been unsuccessful in effectively fighting secrecy. Recent initiatives have focused in creating incentives for those countries to sign information-exchange agreements, but pitfalls to these approach include inedequate standards applied to the agreements and also room for secrecy jurisdictions to circumvent their commitment with new secrecy arrangements.
For the full article on the release of the index, please click here. The picture shown above is from cnbc.com.
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