The controversy surrounding the leakage of Panama’s papers has revived uncertainty about tax havens. The concept of tax havens is wrong, as they affect a single characteristic of territories that in themselves are “secret jurisdictions”. And that is that, beyond the tax and protective benefits they offer to non-residents in these territories, these places offer bonuses to secret banking and financial deregulation. However, each territory has its differential characteristics. For example, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) ranked 90 jurisdictions in 2015 according to their degree of secrecy and on the front line of the list were Switzerland, Hong Kong, USA, Singapore and the Cayman Islands. On the other hand, the City of London is one of the main financial centres with giant tax investments in addition to Switzerland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The Citya has ramifications in the Caribbean, in the Pacific, in the English Channel or in Gibraltar.

Two months ago, the ease with which Panama has created and assumed offshore by the offshore community was revealed. The activities of these associations are usually carried out outside the jurisdiction in which they are registered and in which the real owners and origins of the big wealthy, transnational corporations, banks or investment funds are hidden. Since their inception, these phantom societies operate from any point of tax protection; and the societies appearing in Panama’s papers have used more than thirty jurisdictional currents – most of which are registered in the British Virjin Islands. However, Panama is not the only one in this activity: In Delawa, the main tax protection for IBEX-35 companies, there are also numerous offshore associations in Nevada or in other US states. Panama ' s papers have revealed that some major banks operating in Europe create fictitious companies through the Mossack Fonseca office, provided that their capital is established on those jurisdictional leagues to prevent public finances.

Likewise, in 2014 there was the filtration of Luxleaks: see article by Pello Zubiria in number 2516 of ARGIA; 17/07/2016. We discovered that the Luxembourg Government had been negotiating with a large number of transnational companies, such as Fiat and Amazon, for years, recognition of their profits in the country in exchange for minimum taxes. At that time, Juncker was the Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Luxembourg, and when he was elected President of the European Commission he was well known. We have subsequently learned that these kinds of pre-tax practices have also occurred in other countries, such as Ireland with Apple or Holland with Starbucks. According to the European Commission’s calculations, the tax fraud of large companies will be between EUR 50 and 70 billion a year. The latest TJN estimates indicate that the amount concealed in the dark jurisdictions in 2014 ranged from 31% to 44% of global GDP and from 10% to 14% of the world’s total financial assets. Thus, the Fiscal Shelters are the fundamental instrument of financing and deregulation of the world that is at the root of the current crisis, a symbol of ultraliberalism.

Tax havens are not independent spaces of the global financial system, on the contrary, even though they are black holes in the system, they are essential for their maintenance. They are pillars of a global financial network, with strong connections with financial institutions and global economic power. That is why there is no real political will to eliminate tax havens by prioritizing the general interest.