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Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens, by Nicholas Shaxson
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A thrilling ride inside the world of tax havens and corporate masterminds
While the United States experiences recession and economic stagnation and European countries face bankruptcy, experts struggle to make sense of the crisis. Nicholas Shaxson, a former correspondent for the Financial Times and The Economist, argues that tax havens are a central cause of all these disasters.
In this hard hitting investigation he uncovers how offshore tax evasion, which has cost the U.S. 100 billion dollars in lost revenue each year, is just one item on a long rap sheet outlining the damage that offshoring wreaks on our societies. In a riveting journey from Moscow to London to Switzerland to Delaware, Shaxson dives deep into a vast and secret playground where bankers and multinational corporations operate side by side with nefarious tax evaders, organized criminals and the world's wealthiest citizens. Tax havens are where all these players get to maximize their own rewards and leave the middle class to pick up the bill.
With eye opening revelations, Treasure Islands exposes the culprits and its victims, and shows how:
*Over half of world trade is routed through tax havens
*The rampant practices that precipitated the latest financial crisis can be traced back to Wall Street's offshoring practices
*For every dollar of aid we send to developing countries, ten dollars leave again by the backdoor
The offshore system sits much closer to home than the pristine tropical islands of the popular imagination. In fact, it all starts on a tiny island called Manhattan. In this fast paced narrative, Treasure Islands at last explains how the system works and how it's contributing to our ever deepening economic divide.
- Sales Rank: #523988 in Books
- Brand: Palgrave MacMillan
- Published on: 2012-09-04
- Released on: 2012-09-04
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 232.41" h x 18.41" w x 6.13" l, .65 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 272 pages
Features
Review
“This book is a vigorous and well researched polemic against financial deregulation…” ―Richard Cooper, Foreign Affairs
“Shaxson's story of offshore banking is nothing short of Shakespearean, a drama full of secrecy, treachery and corruption in which wealthy countries, companies and individuals collude to horde wealth in a complex global network of largely unregulated tax havens. To realize this end, they install corrupt leaders, exploit indigenous populations and, ultimately, deny both developed and developing nations of vital tax dollars. There is much here that should generate outrage…An admirable job of both arguing the consequences of offshore banking and providing a succinct history of the practice.” ―Kirkus
“A blistering account of the role that tax havens play in international finance. . . brilliant.” ―London Review of Books
“Perhaps the most important book published in the UK so far this year.” ―George Monbiot, The Guardian
“Shaxson provides a fascinating narrative that is both analytically compelling and rich in institutional detail.” ―New York Times Economix blog
“A useful critique.” ―Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
“Treasure Islands, Nicholas Shaxson's excellent book on the global offshore tax system.” ―FT Alphaville
“Treasure Islands has prised the lid off an important and terrifying can of worms.” ―Literary Review
“Shaxson shows us that the global financial machine is broken and that very few of us have noticed.” ―New Statesman
“In this riveting, well-written expose, Shaxson goes deep into the largely unexamined realm of offshore money. In the process, he reveals that this shadow world is no mere sideshow, but is troublingly central to modern finance, with the US and the UK as leaders. The resulting abuses are widespread, ranging from tax revenue stripping from African nations to individuals and corporations escaping enforcement and accountability. A must read for anyone who wants to understand the hidden reasons why financial services firms have become so powerful and impossible to reform.” ―Yves Smith, creator of Naked Capitalism and author of Econned
“Treasure Islands shines the light on some very dark places. It reads like a thriller. The shocking thing is its all true.” ―Richard Murphy, co-author of Tax Havens: How Globalization Really Works
“At last, a readable – indeed gripping – book which explains the nuts and bolts of tax havens. More importantly, it lays bare the mechanism that financial capital has been using to stay in charge: capturing government policy-making around the world, shaking off such irritants as democracy and the rule of law, and making sure that suckers like you and me pay for its operators' opulent lifestyles.” ―Misha Glenny, author of McMafia: A Journey through the Global Criminal Underworld
“Trade and investments can play a profoundly productive role on the world economy. But so much of the capital flows that we see are associated with money laundering, tax evasion, and the wholesale larsony (sic) of assets often of very poor countries. These thefts are greatly facilitated by special tax and accounting rules or designed to "attract capital" and embodying obscure and opaque mechanisms. Shaxson does an outstanding and socially valuable job in penetrating the impenetrable and finds a deeply shocking world.” ―Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist for The World Bank
“The real challenge to America's economy comes not from China – but from the Caymans, the Bahamas, and a whole hot-money archipelago loosely under the control of the City of London. If only as a civics lesson, read this astonishing book to find out the true political constitution of the world.” ―Thomas Geoghegan, author of Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?
“Far more than an exposé, Treasure Islands is a brilliantly illuminating, forensic analysis of where economic power really lies, and the shockingly corrupt way in which it behaves. If you're wondering how ordinary people ended up paying for a crisis caused by the reckless greed of the banking industry, this compellingly readable book provides the answers.” ―David Wearing, School of Public Policy, UCL, London's Global University
“An absolute gem that deserves to be read by anyone interested in the way contemporary globalization is undermining social justice. Give it to your sons, daughters, families, favorite legislators and anyone else needing stimulation of their thought buds. This masterpiece illuminates the dark places and shows the visible hand of governments, corporations, banks, accountants, lawyers and other pirates in creating fictitious offshore transactions and structures and picking our pockets. This financial engineering has enabled companies and the wealthy elites to dodge taxes. The result is poverty, erosion of social infrastructure and hard won welfare rights and higher taxes for ordinary people. Tax will be the decisive battleground of the twenty-first century as no democracy can function without it, or provide people with adequate educations, healthcare, security, housing, transport or pensions. Nicholas Shaxson has done a wonderful job in lifting the lid off the inbuilt corruption that has become so naturalized in the western world.” ―Prem Sikka, Professor of Accounting, University of Essex, UK
“Over my holiday last week, I read Nick Shaxson's book – Treasure Islands. I would go as far as saying this book is the No Logo for a new century” ―Sunny Hundal, Liberal Conspiracy
“Shaxson has undertaken a big task with the book Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World. But the task is well worthy of examination, as it is so vital to the shadowy infrastructure of the global financial system… provides an easily digestible overview of the labyrinthine nature of the world of offshore finance.” ―Seeking Alpha
About the Author
Nicholas Shaxson is a journalist who has written for the Financial Times, The Economist Group, African Energy, and the insider newsletter Africa Confidential. He is the author of the highly acclaimed Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil and an associate fellow with the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.
Most helpful customer reviews
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
The mechanics of how it all works is never really explained.
By Kevin Stevens
This is a fairly decent look at a topic I had no real prior knowledge of- Tax avoidance schemes used by large corporations. While the very basics of this topic are described, which was very informative, what Shaxson failed to do is really get into the nitty gritty and really describe how these schemes work. Imagine if I described an engine as a place where well timed explosions controlled by a spark plug go off inside a metal block with exhaust gasses blowing out the tail pipe. You don't really see how the wheels actually start moving- and thats how I often felt reading this book.
Big claims were made about former colonies and developing countries being sucked dry by tax havens, but there were very few examples that were not really fleshed out enough. It often felt like the author was just putting a buckshot of facts on a wall, and leaving the reader to make the connections between the facts. The language was dry, yet somehow not informative- it was very difficult to get through certain sections of the book.
What I learned from this book, I could have learned in roughly 30 pages. The rest was a lot of quotes from officials on how bad things are, and lots of terms like "bamboozling" which I feel were unnecessary editorialization- show me the actual money trail, and I can decide who is the bamboozler/bamboozlee.
Personally I think this book could have used a bit of editing and more of a bottom-up approach. Walk me through how Apple gets away with paying an 8% (or whatever the number is) tax rate, then explain how others do the same thing, and I would have found the book a lot more compelling.
139 of 146 people found the following review helpful.
Brilliant exposition of an arcane topic
By Z. Cohen
Before I get into my review, I wanted to point out that for someone without a lot of financial knowledge, this could be a very difficult book to read. I have a college degree in accounting, did some graduate work in tax, and worked for one of the big four accounting firms for a year in their international tax consulting department. I quit working for them and left the field entirely after I realized in vague generalities what they were doing, which was one of the reasons I was so interested in this book. The international system Shaxson describes coincides perfectly with what I saw in the accounting firm I worked for, and some of the specific techniques he describes correspond exactly to the tax structures I used to see discussed in trainings and other meetings. Given that background, I found this book incredibly engrossing and informative, but if you have low financial literacy, you may have a tough time with it. However, it is incredibly well written, uses a minimum of jargon, and tries its hardest to break down complex tax and financial concepts into lay terms.
Treasure Islands does a really incredible job in shedding light on an arcane, complex international financial system that has evolved mainly over the past 100 years. Like most people, when I heard the term tax haven, I would think of a few rogue Caribbean islands who helped a few rich people and crime lords launder money or hide it from taxation. Shaxson turns that conception on its head. While the term tax haven sounds like it specifically refers to taxes, Shaxon defines it more broadly: "Tax havens can be loosely described as a jurisdiction that seeks to attract money by offering politically stable facilities to help people or business entities get around the laws, rules, and regulations of jurisdictions elsewhere."
Using that definition, Shaxson aggregates the international network of such jurisdictions under the label "the offshore system". In this book, he investigates the three main components of the offshore system, which may surprise you. While the small island states are integral fortifications of the offshore system, the main poles are actually the United States, London, and a grouping of states in continental Europe (mainly Luxembourg, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, and the Netherlands). Considering that about one half of world trade passes through tax havens, they are integral to the current global system. Also, while terrorists and crime lords are significant users of the offshore system, the primary beneficiary and architect is the financial services industry. The bankers on Wall Street and in London have constructed a system to help them undermine democracy, drastically boost profits, destabilize the global markets, shape international regulation to their liking, and evade taxes, and this very same infrastructure enables the financing of international terrorism, corrupt third world rulers, and greatly facilitates the illegal drug trade. One key takeaway from the book is that all of these phenomena have their roots in the same underlying financial network, and none of them can be addressed without confronting the offshore system.
The main services that tax havens provides are secrecy, tax evasion, and freedom from unwanted regulation. A very important consequence of such a system is the creation of a race to the bottom in terms of regulatory environments. Shaxson examines this process both in the United States and internationally. While the US is an international tax haven (offering secrecy to foreign donors, allowing banks to accept proceeds from criminal activities as long as they were committed abroad, offering tax breaks to foreign investors), there is also a tax haven network at the state level. States such as South Dakota and Delaware, in an effort to attract corporations to incorporate in their states, abolished interest rate caps, giving birth to the credit card industry in the 80s. Delaware also has a long history of offering the most permissive rules of corporate governance, giving maximum power to corporate managers. Barack Obama criticized the Caymans, where he alleged that there was a building where 12,000 corporations supposedly had business offices. Well, there is an office building in Delaware with about 219,000.
Internationally, the offshore system allows banks to exercise this deregulatory leverage at the national level. The city of London, which has long maintained an extremely lax regulatory environment for fascinating historical reasons detailed in the book, began attracting massive amounts of business from US banks chafing under the Bretton Woods system of capital controls and Glass Steagall regulations separating commercial and investment banking. London had no such controls, so US banks were able to begin doing business there and use the threat to relocate to London to eventually force the US to deregulate in the late 90s and 2000s. As we know, this was a crucial development in setting the stage for the financial crisis of 2008. In addition, the unregulated markets that were based in London allowed banks to set up investment vehicles that were free of reserve requirements, allowing them to issue massive amounts of debt.
A final theme discussed in the book is the devastating effects of the offshore system on poor countries. For every one dollar of foreign aid that has flowed into developing countries over the past 30 or so years, TEN dollars have left the country and into the offshore system, building the portfolios and secret accounts of corrupt ruling elites. The offshore system creates a neocolonial dynamic where western countries back corrupt leaders and their allies, and provide the international financial infrastructure for these corrupt elites to steal their country's wealth and hide it abroad, free of tax. As pernicious as that is, the real consequence to that is that poor populations are saddled with the debt (the proceeds of which the rulers stole), which then of course requires the IMF to come in and radically undermine democracy by imposing harsh structual adjustment programs that mainly benefit rich investor countries and cause great pain to average people.
In summary, this book details the most important aspect of the global economy that you probably never knew existed. If you are interested in understanding poverty, inequality, development economics, international terrorism and the drug trade, and how corporations have amassed such great political power, you are missing a huge piece of the puzzle if you don't read Shaxson's epic work.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
I knew it was bad but not that bad and sad!
By rollinindo
I hope the pro globalization pro tax competition business and economic leaders and even those lying politicians who claim to fight the offshore industry won't have to debate Shaxon any time soon. He makes it very challenging to morally defend tax havens. He sheds light on this how the system works and how it affect the balance sheets of all countries and even the values of all the people this phenomenon touches. Its a big book but easy to read and to understand even if you don't get anything about banking or economics. My favorite part is towards the end when he passionately destroys the most pro offshore arguments given by the liberty and tax competition crowd. Being a libertarian myself I gotta admit I was humbled to get this clearer view of this whole offshore secrecy debate. When I bought the book I thought he was just another European whining pro welfare state socialist intellectual. One of the best book I ever read!
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