A TAX expert has criticised a story printed in The Guardian newspaper yesterday that made claims about Guernsey’s finance industry.

Graham Parrott (pictured), a partner at Ernst and Young, said the article was factually incorrect.

In it the newspaper’s economics editor, Larry Elliott, claimed jurisdictions such as Guernsey have a ‘get-out-of-regulation-free card’.

But Mr Parrott countered: ‘The reference to a get-out-of-regulation free card completely ignores the significant amount of regulation in all these [Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey] islands and should be compared to other jurisdictions,’ he said.

‘He also seems to have ignored the savings directive, the double taxation agreements and the recently signed tax information exchange agreement, all designed to address the issue he refers to.

Mr Parrott also accuses Mr Elliott of pre-empting the results of the review of the dependent territories, announced in the last Budget, by claiming that the UK Government’s bail-out for the banking sector was conditional on UK banks closing their offshore subsidiaries.