Hide-and-seek: Can tax treaties reveal offshore wealth?

Jeong-Dae Lee
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Jeong-Dae Lee: Macroeconomic Policy and Financing for Development Division, UNESCAP

No WP/19/07, MPDD Working Paper Series from United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

Abstract: In response to offshore tax evasion, governments have introduced new tax treaties to facilitate the exchange of financial account information between jurisdictions, including traditional tax havens. Based on international banking statistics, I examine whether these treaties have had a material impact on offshore evasion. Based on panel regression analysis, I find that cross-border deposits in traditional haven jurisdictions, taken as a proxy for offshore evasion in the literature, have declined substantially. However, I also find that these offshore assets are being relocated to few non-compliant tax havens and moreover, “non-haven” offshore financial centres, most notably the United States, which has yet to commit to reciprocal and automatic exchange of information and establish a public register of ultimate beneficial ownership.

Keywords: tax evasion; tax haven; exchange of information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc, nep-iue and nep-pbe
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