By Gordon Barlow

This essay is a
wee bit out of the ordinary, in that it was written six years ago for
my personal blog. Since then, it has become the third most visited of
all my 200-plus posts – and was actually #1 for the month of April
this year. The title discloses the subject-matter, which seems
to be of enduring interest – in the USA, especially. It might be of
interest to some of Colin’s website’s visitors too. I haven’t
bothered changing what I first wrote and published back in 2013.

According to most
reports in the mainstream media, Offshore tax-havens siphon off
trillions of dollars every year that high-tax nations would otherwise
spend on health care, education and sorely needed infrastructure.
Also, as a sideline, the tax-havens launder money for crooks. Their
existence is a crime against humanity, and a symbol of how rotten the
world of business has become.

Well, yes and no...

The siphoning-off of
the trillions of dollars is partly true, though it is not the
tax-havens who do the siphoning; they are merely passive go-betweens.
Much of the siphoned money is not destined for the legitimate benefit
of taxpayers, but for unnecessary invasions and occupations of
faraway places. Those actions really are a crime against humanity. If
the criminal warmakers would stop doing them, they would have the
extra trillions to spend on health, education and sorely needed
infrastructure.

It’s a sad fact of
life that most high-tax nations are controlled by people whose
self-interest mocks all notions of decency. Arguably, the less money
left in their hands, the more humane place the world would be. As it
is, their budgets provide for the destruction of health, education
and infrastructure in the Middle East. And/or in Black Africa, which
is being mooted as the next victim of the NATO military machine.

More millions of
lives will be ended, and more trillions of dollars will be diverted
away from the provision of health care, education and sorely needed
infrastructure at home, into the bank accounts of the wanton
destroyers of the quality of life in other countries. Most of the
money will be channelled through Offshore tax-havens, yes, but always
with the full knowledge and consent of the rulers of the high-tax
nations and their tax-collectors.

The tax-collectors
(IRS, Internal Revenue and the like) and their political masters know
exactly how much is going to which tax-havens and for what purpose.
After all, it’s the legislators who write the laws, and the
tax-collectors who write the regulations. How could they not
know?

It’s partly true,
too, that Offshore tax-havens launder money for crooks. Actually, the
havens facilitate the transfer of moneys for anybody who asks, pretty
much. It’s impossible for the local facilitators to know which
money belongs to crooks and which belongs to legitimate trading
companies. Both those categories are advised by lawyers, accountants
and banks that are licensed in high-tax nations. After all,
wire-transfers aren’t accompanied by memos that say “This money
is the property of the Mafia. Don’t mix it up with Exxon’s.” Be
reasonable.

Transfers do include
money belonging to criminals not approved by the rulers of the
high-tax nations. Some of it belongs to drug-smuggling gangs who are
actually in competition with gangs protected by the CIA and other
official agencies. That’s pretty cheeky, eh?

Is the existence of
Offshore tax-havens a crime against humanity? Well, only to the
degree that all international trade is, and the licensing of
international trading companies’ lawyers, accountants and banks is.
Many properly licensed international trading companies are involved
in serious crime, you know – far more serious than petty
tax-dodging. Think of Blackwater, Halliburton, and all the other
destroyers of lives and infrastructure in the world, and the banks
that finance them, and the politicians and retired generals who work
for them.

Last question: What
happens to the trillions of dollars sent to the tax-havens? One never
reads or hears about that. In fact, none of it stays here, except for
a miniscule percentage taken as fees by facilitators. Why would it
stay here? Our local economies couldn’t possibly find a use for it;
Cayman’s GDP is less than a billion dollars, for goodness sake.
Rather, it is invested by its owners in ever more inventory, to be
traded for ever more profits. Round and round and round it goes.

All the high-tax nations' senior politicians and tax-collectors know about it.

Gordon Barlow

Gordon Barlow has lived in Cayman since 1978. He was the first full-time Manager of the Cayman Islands Chamber of Commerce (1986-1988)- a turbulent period as the Chamber struggled to establish its political independence. He has publicly commented on social and political issues since 1990, and in 1998 served as the secretary of two committees of the ‘Vision 2008’ exercise. He has represented the Chamber at several overseas conferences, and the Cayman Islands Human Rights Committee at an international symposium in Gibraltar in 2004.

You can view all his blogs at: https://barlowscayman.blogspot.com