Bob Bauman JD, Chairman, The Freedom Alliance
Dear Sovereign Investor,
The G20 meeting in France ended last Friday with friction and a failure to solve euro zone problems. After failed talks in Cannes, financial markets dropped as the summit ended in a state of disorder.
But one demagogue stood out at Cannes: host French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. Known for his grandstanding, he closed the G20 meeting with a stern warning that tax havens would be shunned by the international community.
He claims they haven’t done enough to end banking secrecy.
Pretending to speak for all G20 nations he said: “We don’t want any more tax havens. Our message is clear.” He then claimed that Switzerland, Panama and Uruguay “…have not provided a suitable legal framework for the exchange of tax information.”
C’est un mensonge délibéré! That is a deliberate lie!
Sarkozy is Seeking Scapegoats
Sarkozy ignores the scores of tax information exchange agreements that Panama, Uruguay and Switzerland have signed. Each of them officially now operates under OECD (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development) transparency rules.
Panama President Ricardo Martinelli called his French counterpart out on the lie. As he pointed out, “Panama has even signed a double taxation treaty with France.”
Panama Foreign Minister Roberto Henriquez went further, saying Sarkozy and the G20 were “looking for scapegoats to cover its financial mismanagement at the edge of a crisis.”
And Sarkozy’s urging that the international community should “isolate Uruguay because it is a tax haven” produced a formal complaint from the Uruguayan government.
What the media never mentions about these G20 hot air sessions is that their virulent anti-tax haven policy is drafted and put forward by the OECD.
For more than a decade, the OECD and their high-tax sponsors have called for “tax harmonization,” which, by their radical definition, means every nation can impose ever higher taxes and that no escape is to be allowed by international tax competition.
Now the OECD and Sarkozy even assert G20 power to target legal tax avoidance, a radical step consistent with the ultra-leftist OECD philosophy.
This latest attack on tax havens proves my repeated assertion over the years that these OECD critics will never be satisfied until they accomplish the complete destruction of financial privacy and the imposition of a worldwide tax system.
Sarkozy has been pushing for just such a global tax: an UN-administered tax on every financial transaction in the world as a way to force everyone to pay for government bailouts to rescue debt and deficit-ridden economies.
Thankfully, his scheme has run into opposition from the United States, Canada, Russia, Australia and China… and now us.
How to Fight Back to Protect Your Wealth
These attacks on your financial and personal freedoms will continue. But you can fight back by reordering your personal and business affairs to include a strong offshore component that expands both investment profitability and asset protection.
Look to Switzerland, Panama, and Uruguay for the financial services and asset protection tools they offer:
- Switzerland remains the best all around offshore financial center for banking and as a global investment base.
- Panama, with its strictly territorial tax system, excels in trusts and private family foundations and welcomes foreigners as privileged new residents under it famous pensionado program.
- Uruguay mirrors that welcome to foreigners with an abbreviated wait (3 years) for full citizenship in some cases and it too levies no taxes on most offshore income.
Faithfully yours,
Bob Bauman JD
Chairman, The Freedom Alliance