Switzerland, others for a say in tax blacklist talks

FE Team | Published: March 10, 2009 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

LXUEMBOURG, March 8 (AFP): Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria Sunday fought off attempts to include them on an international blacklist of tax havens over their banking secrecy rules, demanding a say in talks on the issue ahead of a G20 summit next month.

"Debates about bank secrecy are conducted in fora to which we do not belong, like the G20 for example," Luxembourg Treasury Minister Luc Frieden said after hosting discussions with the Swiss and Austrian finance ministers.

"We demand that the doors to these debates are opened to see how lists of tax havens are drawn up," he told journalists.

Concern is growing in Luxembourg, Austria and Switzerland about growing international pressure on them for practicing bank secrecy, with the G20 summit in London on April 2 due to reveal a list of uncooperative tax havens.

"We regret that some countries are talking about tax havens without having led debate about the criteria that define a tax haven," Frieden said, adding that the three countries did not meet those criteria.

"Our aim is to be included in the process of establishing a blacklist" of tax havens, said Swiss Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz.

Switzerland has come under particularly strong pressure from the United States and big European countries to yield on banking secrecy, which has made the Alpine country an international financial centre.

In February, Swiss bank UBS handed over information on up to 300 clients to the US government and paid a fine of 780 million dollars to settle a case in which it was accused of abetting tax fraud by US clients.

France and Germany last week proposed that G20 members punish countries deemed to be "uncooperative" tax havens by breaking off bilateral fiscal conventions with them.

Facing such pressure, Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg are showing a new willingness to help authorities in other countries combat tax fraud while also insisting that they will not entirely pull off the veil of bank secrecy.

"We are ready to have a dialogue to find joint ways of stepping up the fight against tax fraud," said Frieden.