Top 15 tax havens around the world – where the billionaires and millionaires hoard their money
CORPNET, an Amsterdam research group, has ranked 24 offshore financial centres according to how much more money comes in than how much should come in based on the size of their economies
Tax havens are places where businesspeople and other wealthy individuals keep money in offshore accounts for tax avoidance and other purposes.
Also known as offshore financial centres (OFCs), these tax shelters are often small, low-tax jurisdictions in remote locations, like the Caribbean islands. In these places, wealthy individuals often hold money within shell companies and anonymous entities.
CORPNET, an Amsterdam-based research group that investigates global networks of corporate control, published a 2017 report in Scientific Reports ranking 24 offshore financial centres by their “sink” number, which indicates roughly how much more money comes into the country than how much should come in based on the size of its economy.
In the Cayman Islands, for example, 331 times more value sinks into the country than is proportionate to the size of its economy.
The European Union releases a tax haven “blacklist” – first published in 2015 and continuously updated – that calls out specific countries to improve global tax governance and fight tax fraud, evasion and avoidance. The EU blacklist pressures nations to make changes and reforms to their tax codes, and blacklisted countries can face sanctions from the EU, according to Oxfam International.
Here are the world’s 15 top tax havens, according to CORPNET.
15. The Seychelles
Sink: 60
Once a British colony, Seychelles is an archipelago of islands in the Indian Ocean that is about 2.5 times the size of Washington, DC.
The island nation made headlines in 2018 for being the setting of a mysterious alleged meeting between a Trump-linked private security entrepreneur, a Russian CEO, and a representative of the United Arab Emirates, which was investigated by Robert Mueller as part of the Trump-Russia investigation.
The Seychelles was one of 30 countries blacklisted as a tax haven by the EU in 2015, but it was later moved to the “grey list” after making some tax reform commitments.