Hong Kong, Singapore Face Scrutiny on Tax Policies
By TOM WRIGHT IN JAKARTA and CARLOS TEJADA IN HONG KONG
Hong Kong and Singapore, two of Asia's major financial hubs, could come under greater scrutiny as developed nations signal a tougher stance on what they consider tax havens.
Both have had simmering tensions with major trading partners on the issue of personal financial disclosure, particularly in the realm of private banking. Singapore, a wealthy Southeast Asian city-state of 4.5 million people, has emerging as a major private banking center in recent years with about $300 billion under management.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong – a special administrative region of China, with a population of seven million – has been mulling its own response to tax worries in other nations.
A spokeswoman for Hong Kong's government declined to comment, while Singaporean authorities couldn't be reached late Thursday.
International pressure is mounting on the two locales and other places long considered tax havens to disclose more information on possible tax evaders in the wake of the financial crisis and the Bernard Madoff affair. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development includes Singapore and Hong Kong on a list of uncooperative tax havens that also includes Lichtenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria. Lichtenstein and the tiny state of Andorra took steps Thursday to address those concerns.
European Union authorities have long worried that European citizens will park their money in places like Singapore as their own tax havens come under tighter scrutiny. European Union negotiators have already turned up the heat on Singapore to give up names of European citizens who open accounts in the country or withhold a tax payable to the EU. In the past year, the EU has made ongoing talks for a free trade agreement between Singapore and the EU contingent on progress toward some kind of private banking agreement, said a person familiar with the matter.
Some private bankers say the EU focus on Singapore is misplaced because little European money is parked there. Roman Scott, the founder of Singapore-based Calamander Group, a private banking consultancy, said only 8% of the $300 billion of assets under management in Singapore is owned by European individuals or funds.
"The idea that French doctors and German dentists are not paying taxes and are socking away their money in Singapore is nonsense," Mr. Scott said.
More EU money might flow to Singapore as barriers are raised elsewhere, said Mandeep Nalwa, who runs Singapore-based Taurus Wealth Advisers Ltd., which gives advice to rich individuals. Singapore, which already has very strict anti-money laundering rules, would likely want to negotiate over more disclosure, Mr. Nalwa said.
In Hong Kong, the issue of taxes and cooperation with wealthy Western nations has long been contentious in a city that prides itself on its laissez-faire approach to business. In a recent interview, Franz Jessen, who oversees China and Hong Kong issues for the European Commission, said talks on taxes were ongoing with Hong Kong and Macau, another special administrative region of China. "It's an issue that will not go away," he said.
At root for Hong Kong is its policy toward exchanging information with a number of other nations. Its tax authorities are empowered to investigate an issue only where domestic taxes are concerned. That put it out of step with OECD standards, which were overhauled in 2004 to allow greater sharing of information between nations. The issue has held up efforts by the city to hammer out tax treaties with a number of trading partners, and only a handful have been signed since the government vowed to reach them a decade ago.
City officials last year began canvassing business groups on adopting greater sharing measures, after previously consulting with business groups in the beginning of the decade and again in 2005. In a September report, accounting firm KPMG said the benefits of adopting the OECD's greater disclosure rules outweigh the disadvantages, including drawing businesses leery of tax issues and avoiding punitive steps by other governments.
Write to Tom Wright at tom.wright@wsj.com and Carlos Tejada at carlos.tejada@wsj.com
香港、新加坡的避税天堂地位不保？
2009年 03月 13日 11:49两地在个人财务信息披露问题上与其主要贸易伙伴都长期存在紧张关系，特别是在私人银行业务方面。新加坡有450万人口，是东南亚一个富裕的城市国家，近年来它已成长为全球一个主要的私人银行业务中心，管理着约3,000亿美元的资产。
人口700万的香港则是中国的一个特别行政区，对于其他国家担心本国公民会通过此地避税的担忧，香港一直在研究应对措施。
香港政府一位发言人拒绝对此事发表评论，而记者周四晚间也未能联系到新加坡政府有关部门，无法获得相关评论。
在金融危机爆发以及伯纳德•马多夫(Bernard Madoff)欺诈案曝光后，国际社会正在对香港、新加坡以及其他长久以来被视为避税天堂的地方施加日益增大的压力，要求它们披露那些有逃税嫌疑者的更多信息。总部位于巴黎的经济合作与发展组织(OECD)已将新加坡和香港列为了持不合作态度的避税天堂，同时被列入这一名单的还有列支敦士登、瑞士、卢森堡和奥地利。列支敦士登和小国安导尔周四已采取措施来缓解外界对有人利用其避税的担忧。
欧盟有关部门一直担心，由于欧洲自身的避税天堂面临更严格的审查，欧洲公民会将资金转移至新加坡等地。欧盟的谈判人员已经向新加坡施加更大压力，要求披露在新加坡开设帐户或其向欧盟应付税款被新加坡代扣的欧洲公民信息。
据一位知情人士说，过去一年中，欧盟已经将其与新加坡间自由贸易谈判的进度与双方在签署某种私人银行协议方面的进展挂起了钩。
一些私人银行家说，欧盟将焦点对准新加坡是瞄错了目标，因为新加坡并没有多少欧洲资金。新加坡私人银行咨询公司Calamander Group的创办人斯科特(Roman Scott)说，新加坡管理的3,000亿美元资产中只有8%属于欧洲的个人或基金。
他说，那种认为法国医生和德国牙医把逃避交税的钱存在新加坡的说法是无稽之谈。
但新加坡理财顾问公司Taurus Wealth Advisers Ltd.的负责人纳尔瓦(Mandeep Nalwa)说，随着世界其他地方避税门坎的提高，可能会有更多欧洲资金流入新加坡。他认为，新加坡已经有非常严格的反洗钱法规，它可能愿意就披露更多信息的问题与有关方面展开谈判。
在香港这样一个一直以政府不干预企业经营而自豪的城市，与西方富有国家的税务和合作问题一直以来都存在争议。欧盟委员会负责中国和香港问题的延森(Franz Jessen)近期在采访中表示，欧盟仍在就税务问题与香港和澳门进行谈判。他说，这个问题不会不了了之。
香港的问题根源是其与诸多其他国家信息交流的政策。香港税务部门只有权调查涉及本地税务的问题。这使得香港和经合组织的标准存在冲突，经合组织已于2004年进行了改变，允许国家和地区之间进一步共享信息。这个问题妨碍了香港与大量贸易伙伴达成税务协议，自香港政府十年前承诺达成协议以来，该地区迄今只与少数几个国家签署了税务协议。
香港官员去年开始就采用劝说商业组织采取更广泛的信息共享措施，此前政府曾在本世纪初和2005年两度就这个问题咨询商业组织。会计师事务所毕马威(KPMG)去年9月发布报告称，采用经合组织加强信息披露的规定利大于弊，其中包括能吸引对税务问题敏感的企业，以及避免其他国家政府的惩罚性措施。
Tom Wright / Carlos Tejada
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The Wall Street Journal
14 March 2009
Swiss to Relax Bank Secrecy Laws
By DAVID CRAWFORD and JESSE DRUCKER
Switzerland, the world's largest offshore tax haven, said it will relax its bank secrecy laws to cooperate with international tax probes, in an effort to escape a potential crackdown on countries that protect tax evaders.
The move helped along a sudden trend among havens of banking secrecy: The Swiss decision was mirrored Friday by Austria and Luxembourg, two other European countries with strong bank secrecy laws. It followed similar decisions by the European principalities of Lichtenstein and Andorra a day earlier.
But the limited cooperation Switzerland promised won't affect another trend drawing scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers: companies with U.S. headquarters reincorporating there to avoid taxes. And Switzerland doesn't plan to abandon bank secrecy, a pillar of the Alpine nation's success in the financial industry.
Swiss President and Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz said his country will share information only after detailed requests on individual cases from other countries. That would make it difficult for foreign tax investigators to trawl for tax evaders.
"There will be no automatic exchange of information," he told reporters.
The rash of pledges by tax havens to open up their secretive banking cultures comes after intense international pressure. Until now, Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg have refused to cooperate fully with international tax-evasion probes, on grounds that the offense was not criminal. In Switzerland, tax evasion is not listed as a criminal offense.
Mr. Merz said the pressure on Switzerland intensified on March 5, when the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development prepared an updated list of uncooperative tax havens, for presentation at the April 2 summit of the leaders of the Group of 20 countries. The G-20 nations, whose finance ministers are meeting this weekend, are expected to discuss possible sanctions on banking centers that fail to provide legal assistance with international tax probes.
Switzerland was on the new OECD blacklist, Mr. Merz said. Faced with the threat of sanctions, Mr. Merz met with finance ministers from Austria and Luxembourg. The time was ripe for change, Mr. Merz told reporters, but he said that if Switzerland had dropped bank secrecy on its own, "all the money would fly away." He declined to say what proportion of the estimated $2 trillion in foreign assets held in Switzerland he now expects to be withdrawn.
Information would be shared only after the signing of new bilateral treaties. Mr. Merz said Switzerland may seek new rules, including an amnesty for possible tax evasion that took place prior to any treaties being signed.
Austrian finance minister Josef Proll said his country also will accept OECD standards for cooperation in international tax investigations based on treaty arrangements. Germany has long complained that Austria's bank secrecy laws encourage wealthy Germans to hide their money across the border.
A pair of antitax haven bills introduced in Congress last week seek to make it harder for U.S. companies to avoid taxes using offshore entities. In a trend that accelerated late last year, numerous U.S. companies have switched their site of incorporation to Switzerland from Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, in an effort to avoid the impact of antitax haven legislation.
Those companies include conglomerate Tyco International Ltd., oil companies Foster Wheeler Ltd., Weatherford International Ltd., Transocean Inc. and insurer ACE Ltd. In many cases, the companies' top executives will remain in the U.S.
Switzerland has a corporate income tax, but doesn't levy it on profits earned by subsidiaries overseas, making it possible for companies to avoid taxes.
Write to David Crawford at david.crawford@wsj.com and Jesse Drucker at jesse.drucker@wsj.com
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