(CMR) The Cayman Islands is no longer the top country that helps individuals hide ownership of assets after dropping to 14th in the Tax Justice Network's recent ranking.
The United States now holds the top spot. Cayman reportedly dropped to 14th after disclosing data that showed the scale of financial services it provides to non-residents was lower than expected.
The Tax Justice Network ranks countries by how their financial and legal systems help people and entities conceal ownership of assets.
The US has increased its supply of financial secrecy to the world by almost a third since 2020, earning it the worst rating since rankings began in 2009, Bloomberg reported.
“These rankings show how corrupt actors are weaponizing our financial system against democracy. The US must support more reciprocal automatic information exchange between countries,” said Ian Gary, executive director at the US-based Financial Accountability & Corporate Transparency Coalition.
The Tax Justice Network said the US's worsening score was caused by its refusal to exchange information with other countries' tax authorities.
According to the Tax Justice Network, five of the G-7 countries – the US, UK, Japan, Germany and Italy – are responsible for cutting global progress against financial secrecy by more than half.
British overseas territories are responsible for 8.9% of all financial secrecy in the world, according to the Tax Justice Network. According to Bloomberg, that rises to more than a tenth of the world's total supply if the UK is included, which almost doubles that of the US.
Switzerland, which lies in second place on the ranking, supplies only half as much financial secrecy as the United States, the index shows.
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