The World of International Financial Centres: Opportunities, Concerns, and Regulations. Este artículo no está disponible.The World of International Financial Centres: Opportunities, Concerns, and Regulations

Evidence continues to accumulate indicating that tax havens (as they are familiarly called) account for a staggering multi-trillion-dollar loss of tax revenues worldwide. Yet, as this crucially important book shows, such offshore financial centres (OFCs) represent merely the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of a massive malaise reaching into every corner of today’s global financial services landscape with the so-called New York-London axis at its root.

In a biting critique and analysis of the tax and regulatory environments from which OFCs operate, the author demonstrates that OFC-like features exist in almost every jurisdiction as a virtually inevitable outcome of the transformation of economies worldwide over the past three decades, as nations and economic blocs compete for foreign investments, and as nations seek expansion of markets to accelerate growth. Covered aspects of this phenomenon include the following:

• the financialization process in global transactions;
• erosion of credibility in political establishments with regard to their ability to govern from the centre;
• ultralight regulatory enclaves found in parts of developed countries;
• public pressure demanding enhanced international cooperation and global tax reforms, now increasingly led by the US Biden administration, and increasingly likely to reach consensus among G7 economies; and
• momentum generated for reform of financial reporting systems by the leaked Panama and Paradise Papers, as well as the gathering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that led to growing government involvements in national and regional economies to protect the health and economic welfares of their respective populations.

With its insights into why OFCs persist despite tightening of the rules regarding tax and financial transparency, and its insistence that the blameworthiness of large-scale tax avoidance should be assessed as a global tax problem requiring coordinated and collaborative response from both developing and advanced economies, this book takes a giant step towards genuine international tax reform. It will prove of enormous value to financial institutions, multinational corporations, tax experts, and lawmakers seeking to mend a world increasingly troubled by illicit financial flows, and problems posed by large individual and corporate tax escape artists.

Disclaimer: This title is in pre-production and any names, credits or associations are subject to change. The current table of contents and subject matter is for pre-release sample purposes only.

Peter Yeoh is a Research Fellow at the School of Law, Social Sciences and Communications at the University of Wolverhampton. He has also previously served at senior level in the manufacturing and financial services sectors. He has degrees in economics, management and law, master’s degrees in the same disciplines and a doctorate in corporate and financial services law. Yeoh is a reviewer in several business and financial services law journals. He has also published more than forty papers in various corporate and financial services peer-review law journals, several book chapters, and two books related to crypto assets and digital financial services or financial technology entities, otherwise known as Fintechs.