At first blush, David Cameron seems an unlikely foe of tax dodgers and their accomplices. Conservatives are traditionally friendly to the wealthy and to big business, who gain most from fancy financial footwork. The City of London enjoys symbiosis with a cluster of offshore dependencies-including Jersey and the British Virgin Islands (BVI)-which have a reputation for, at best, inviting tax avoidance and, at worst, aiding financial crime.But as chair of the summit of the g8 (the biggest industrialised countries) being held in Northern Ireland next week, the prime minister will push for global reform of the world economy's most shadowy corners. He wants to improve tax compliance through the cross-border exchange of information, to improve those data by making companies, trusts and the like show their true owners, and to change outdated rules which multinationals exploit to cut their tax bills. His assault is both on the offshore tax havens and on the often dodgier, if less well-known, practices in onshore jurisdictions such as Dela-ware-or London.
展开▼
