What are tax havens?
A tax haven is a country with tax rates low enough to attract foreign investors. The world’s biggest tax haven is the United States. We have very competitive tax and privacy laws for overseas investors, and this has helped attract more than $5 trillion of foreign capital to our economy. Other havens, such as Switzerland with $2 trillion and the Cayman Islands with less than $1 trillion, are minor league compared to America. Why do some politicians hate tax havens? Because they offer an escape hatch for oppressed taxpayers. French taxpayers bring their money to Switzerland; German taxpayers bring their money to Luxembourg; and the world’s taxpayers bring their money to America. Equally important, tax havens don’t help high-tax governments collect tax revenue. They assert, quite correctly, that they’re not obligated to put the tax laws of other nations above their own and that high-tax nations don’t have a right to tax income earned inside the borders of low-tax countries. Is bank secrec
