A new comprehensive study on the offshore economy is published

by the Tax Justice Network (UK) on 22 July 2012.

The full reports (1 and 2) are now online on the blog of the Tax Justice Network:

http://taxjustice.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/the-price-of-offshore-revi...

Main Reports:

http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Price_of_Offshore_Revisite...

by James S. Henry

and

http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Inequality_120722_You_dont...

by Nicholas Shaxson, John Christensen, Nick Mathiason.

The report The Price of Offshore Revisited compiled by James Henry, former chief economist at consultancy McKinsey and an expert on tax havens, was first released to The Observer newspaper in the UK (22 July 2012):

£13tn: hoard hidden from taxman by global elite

From this article:

"A global super-rich elite has exploited gaps in cross-border tax rules to hide an extraordinary £13 trillion ($21tn) of wealth offshore – as much as the American and Japanese GDPs put together – according to research commissioned by the campaign group Tax Justice Network.

James Henry, former chief economist at consultancy McKinsey and an expert on tax havens, has compiled the most detailed estimates yet of the size of the offshore economy in a new report, The Price of Offshore Revisited, released exclusively to the Observer.

He shows that at least £13tn – perhaps up to £20tn – has leaked out of scores of countries into secretive jurisdictions such as Switzerland and the Cayman Islands with the help of private banks, which vie to attract the assets of so-called high net-worth individuals. Their wealth is, as Henry puts it, "protected by a highly paid, industrious bevy of professional enablers in the private banking, legal, accounting and investment industries taking advantage of the increasingly borderless, frictionless global economy".  According to Henry's research, the top 10 private banks, which include UBS and Credit Suisse in Switzerland, as well as the US investment bank Goldman Sachs, managed more than £4tn in 2010, a sharp rise from £1.5tn  five years earlier."

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Anyone interested in peace, sustainable development and justice should study this report and advocate in their countries for the political and legal changes needed to finally end this massive offshore flight of wealth. Offshore centres worldwide enable tax evasion/tax avoidance on gigantic scales, corruption, asset bubbles, commodity speculation, etc.