Stephen Platt. 10113002

US SENATE recommendations that seek to increase disclosure and strengthen enforcement in offshore financial jurisdictions could have far-reaching implications for Guernsey, according to a specialist lawyer.
BakerPlatt Group chairman Stephen Platt was commenting on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which has been investigating ‘tax haven banks and US tax compliance’.
‘The tone and content of their recommendations will no doubt lead to a more onerous and rigorous environment for financial institutions, while banks operating in so-called ‘secrecy jurisdictions’ may lose one of their strongest selling points,’ he said.
‘History suggests that aggressive measures introduced by the US Revenue authority one year are often copied by other jurisdictions in the following years and this level of criticism should therefore send out alarm bells to the entire offshore finance industry.’
BakerPlatt has produced a briefing paper on the Senate hearing, which highlights the committee’s recommendations including a requirement on domestic and foreign institutions to file a statutory report whenever it obtains information that a foreign account is beneficially owned by a US taxpayer and penalties for ‘tax haven’ banks that impede tax enforcement, including giving the US Treasury power to bar those banks from doing business with US financial institutions.