Michael Lagopoulos, President and CEO of the international arm of RBC Wealth Management, believes that the IMFs paper on Jersey, published today, will provide even more comfort to high net worth individuals (HNWIs) who choose to conduct their business in Jersey.
Jersey has for many years been at the cutting edge of introducing internationally recognized legislation to encourage transparency, says Michael Lagopoulos. The recent OECD Global Forum on Tax Transparency and Exchange of Information concluded that the era of banking secrecy law was coming to an end. This is something that Jersey has supported from the outset in promoting the idea of a common global standard for transparency. Jersey’s ratification of a number of Tax Information Exchange Agreements is testament to its commitment to balancing transparency whilst also protecting the privacy of legitimate business activities.
In fact, Jersey has always focused on conducting tax compliant business and this has been the core reason for the significant growth of RBC Wealth Managements Jersey business over the years. Clients are attracted to Jersey as a jurisdiction because of the Island’s strong culture of regulation, and its high levels of professional expertise in the financial, accountancy and legal arenas.
HNWIs are extremely mobile these days, and therefore they are keen to domicile their wealth in a jurisdiction that is politically stable and which has a strong fiscal and regulatory framework. Our clients are extremely attracted to Jersey for these reasons, and the IMFs paper is a welcome affirmation of the positive aspects of the jurisdiction.
The IMF Report gives Jersey well-deserved credibility at a time when offshore financial centres have been lumped under one umbrella and tarnished as ‘tax havens’ irrespective of their attitudes to and proof of transparency.”
D.C.