Tax havens eye uncertain future after concessions

Who pays? asks a neon artwork in wealthy Liechtenstein's elegant black granite cube of a museum.

Who pays? asks a neon artwork in wealthy Liechtenstein8217;s elegant black granite cube of a museum. That question is of more than artistic interest to the family that rules the tiny principality and their 35,000 subjects. Prince Alois agreed earlier this month to start following the rules set down by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Europe aimed at curbing tax havens like his scenic patch of mountain valley between Switzerland and Austria,which owes much of its prosperity to its role as a place to put money. Liechtenstein is hardly alone.

With governments around the world straining to pay for bailouts and fiscal stimulus,some 35 or so offshore tax havens from Britains Channel Islands Jersey and Guernsey to the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean are under increasing pressure to let in more light.

One by one,theyre caving in. Were in the middle of a power struggle,and the big countries can do what they like, said Michael Lauber,chief executive of the Liechtenstein Bankers Association.

A study by the Boston Consulting Group estimated that 7.3 trillion is stashed in offshore banking centers by people either taking advantage of low taxes or simply evading notice of tax authorities back home. Curbing havens is one of the issues facing the Group of 20 summit on the world economic crisis,which gathers rich and leading developing countries in London on April 2. Germanys Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck spoke last year of using the whip against tax havens. Fellow German politician Franz Muentefering made the undiplomatic remark that in the old times one would have sent in troops 8230; We have to be rid of tax havens.

Last year,German tax investigators launched a series of raids after paying 5 million euros 7.9 million for a CD-ROM containing the names of hundreds of Liechtenstein bank customers. One of them was Deutsche Post chairman Klaus Zumwinkel,who got a year8217;s suspended sentence and a euro1 million euro fine.

The pressure on tax havens rose with the election of President Barack Obama,who as a US senator co-sponsored legislation with Senator Carl Levin,a Michigan Democrat whose bill is designed to crack down on havens estimated to cost the United States 100 billion annually in lost revenue. The bill,still in Senate committee,proposes money-laundering sanctions against countries that impede US tax investigations,as well as heavy fines for those who use or promote illegal tax havens.