Letters | Sunday, 13 December 2009

PRINT THIS ARTICLE

Tax havens should disappear

Your article about Malta risking being labelled as a tax haven (6 December 2009) raises concern. Malta cannot afford to be on any blacklist, least of all that of a US authority. In any case, in principle havens are what they are: a means of tax avoidance using legal loopholes in one country or another. In the current situation of the global economy, tax havens distort statistics and unbalance the expectation of tax revenues of individual countries. Nowadays, most financial policies are a result of combined international moves to promote stability in the global markets. Tax havens in effect work around the edges of those policies and exploit the loopholes within.
On the other hand, it is also incumbent for the international community to sanction the biggest peddler of international money swishing around in Switzerland. I find that a bigger scandal in relation to the activities, however great, in Malta. It does seem however that for political and other financial reasons, in the past Switzerland has been exempt from a lot of the investigations around its multibillion financial economy. It is time that all tax havens around the world, however big or small, politically important or not, to disappear from the face of the earth as they totally distort what is really happening in real economies.

Francis Borg
Liverpool, UK

Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below.
Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.

All the interviews from Reporter on MaltaToday's YouTube channel.

EDITORIAL


True reform inside PBS

---

INTERVIEW


Rambling on a minefield

---

MT Surveys

Robert Arrigo ‘most wanted’ for minister

Cabinet thrives, but Fenech and Gatt hit rock bottom

Bleak times – depression at the Grand Harbour

Budget 2010 – Raise taxes or cut benefits?

FREE FALL

So near and yet so different

Only 35% will be taking a holiday this summer

The wiser, grey pound

Shopping in the City

Corned beef? a matter of class

Labour poised for absolute majority

Turnout drops to 79%

Labour Party heading for absolute majority

EU MEMBERSHIP – FIVE YEARS LATER