Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World

WITH NEW AND UPDATED MATERIAL Billionaire Warren Buffet, currently the third wealthiest man in the world, paid the lowest rate of tax among his office staff, including his receptionist. In 2006 the world's three biggest banana companies did nearly £400 million worth of business in Britain but paid just £128,000 in tax between them. In January 2009, US law enforcement fined Lloyds TSB $350 million after it admitted secretly channelling Iranian and Sudanese money into the US banking system. Tax havens are the most important single reason why poor people and poor countries stay poor. They lie at the very heart of the global economy, with over half the world trade processed through them. They have been instrumental in nearly every major economic event, in every big financial scandal, and in every financial crisis since the 1970s, including the latest global economic downturn. In Treasure Islands, Nicholas Shaxson shows how this happened, and what this means for you.

About the Author :
Nicholas Shaxson is the author of Poisoned Wells, the Dirty Politics of African Oil, and an experienced journalist who has written regularly for the Financial Times, The Economist, Vanity Fair and many others.

Review :
"Perhaps the most important book published in the UK so far this year" -- George Monbiot Guardian "Trade and investments can play a profoundly productive role on the world economy. But so much of the capital flows that we see are associated with money laundering, tax evasion, and the wholesale larceny of assets often of very poor countries. These thefts are greatly facilitated by special tax and accounting rules or designed to "attract capital" and embodying obscure and opaque mechanisms. Shaxson does an outstanding and socially valuable job in penetrating the impenetrable and finds a deeply shocking world " -- Nicholas Stern "At last, a readable - indeed gripping - book which explains the nuts and bolts of tax havens. More importantly, it lays bare the mechanism that financial capital has been using to stay in charge: capturing government policy-making around the world, shaking off such irritants as democracy and the rule of law, and making sure that suckers like you and me pay for its operators' opulent lifestyles" -- Misha Glenny, author of McMafia "The struggle against money power is a struggle for human freedom, and Nicholas Shaxson's investigation is a timely expose of where the plunder is buried" -- John Pilger, broadcaster and author of Heroes "A gripping read... an account illuminated by anecdotes that are often more James Bond than eurobond... Shaxson shows us that the global financial machine is broken and that very few of us have noticed" New Statesman