LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Cayman initiative is warfare

OPINION:

Recently, Pascal Saint-Amans, a representative of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), was in Cayman to explain the OECD position with respect to the proposed European Union and OECD “black list” of the Cayman Islands. I am not sorry that I missed his visit, as the true position of the OECD cannot be explained politely.

As Richard Rahn points out in his recent excellent piece in The Washington Times (“The return of the tax bullies,” Web, Jan. 7), the pervasive creep of international organizations in their not-so-hidden agenda for a global high-tax superstate is evident. It is, however, worse than that. Pierre Moscovici, the EU tax commissioner, and Mr. Saint-Amans are both French, and on extraterritorial tax initiatives they speak the same language. One would have hoped the EU and the OECD had learned the true lesson of World War II. You can call it bullying, but it is only one degree removed from Fascism. Admittedly, they do not now use guns and bullets, but this “black list” initiative is economic warfare by high-tax, inefficient and bankrupt countries that are in collusion with one another.

Also disappointing is that in advancing their high-tax, globalization agenda, the EU and the OECD adopt the very same tactics that the post-World-War-II international bodies and the EU were designed to prevent — all the while shamelessly oblivious to the fact that it is Paris which is in flames as a direct result of an increasingly insupportable tax burden.

Let’s be clear: We can, at a stroke, cut through the hundreds of thousands of pages of tortuous double standards produced by the OECD. The truth is that what the EU and the OECD want (and this is inarguable in light of the complete tax transparency that Cayman now provides) is for the investment profit made by Cayman Islands structures to be deemed “harmful” unless taxed twice, whilst investments and structures made through the EU structures are only taxed once.

Black shirts or black lists, their tactics are indistinguishable.

ANTHONY TRAVERS

Senior partner, Travers Thorp Alberga

Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands