'Corruption hardwired into our financial system': reactions to Paradise Papers

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6 November 2017, The Guardian: Reactions to Paradise Papers

"Calls for EU to create a blacklist of uncooperative tax jurisdictions following revelations, with some politicians pledging to use press reports for investigations.

Politicians and tax authorities from around the world have reacted angrily to the details of the Paradise Papers, with some pledging to use details of any press reports as the basis for investigations.

The UK’s network of offshore tax havens face being blacklisted by the European Union for their role in the behaviour revealed by the Paradise Papers.

“It’s time that we agree and publish a blacklist on tax havens,” Pierre Moscovici, the EU tax commissioner, told Reuters on Monday, while commission vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis said the revelations “put renewed emphasis on the work … to fight tax avoidance”.

Proposals for an EU blacklist of uncooperative tax jurisdictions have been under active discussion for several months, prompted in large part by publication of the Panama Papers last year. Attendees at a meeting with Moscovici staffers two weeks ago were told that it was expected proposals would be published by the end of the year, the Guardian understands. (...)

Fabio De Masi, a German MP and former vice-president of an EU committee investigating the Panama Papers last year, echoed calls for registers of owners of trusts and companies, and called for lawyers and accountants who facilitated serious tax fraud should have their licences to operate revoked. “The European parliament should push for greater investigative competences such as a right to summon witnesses under oath as in the US-Senate and establish a permanent subcommittee on corporate taxation,” De Masi said."