August 2010 Archives

Certains observateurs et média  (voir p.ex. Trends-Tendances du 12 août 2010) reprochent au Luxembourg de faire trainer le dossier fiscalité de l'épargne. Dans les faits, ce n'est pas le Luxembourg mais les partenaires européens qui font trainer les choses.

Comme nous le savons, le monde a changé depuis 2000, année où l'accord sur la fiscalité de l'épargne entre partenaires européens a été  passé:

• Un nouveau Gouvernement supranational auto-proclamé a vu naissance, à savoir le G20. Ce même G20 a adopté des standards de lutte contre la fraude fiscale, à savoir l'échange de renseignement sur demande conformément aux conventions standard de l'OCDE. Le Luxembourg a signé plus de 20 accords en ce sens. Ce standard est devenu la nouvelle norme internationale. Elle dépasse et remet en cause les accords européens de 2000. Ce standard est devenu la norme de coopération, de la Chine au Brésil en passant par Hong Kong, Singapour ou la Suisse.
• Le régime de la directive est discriminatoire à un double titre. D'abord il discrimine les centres financiers à l'intérieur de l'UE par rapport aux grands centres financiers hors de l'Union Européenne dont certains ont des taux de croissance vertigineux. Il discrimine également par rapport aux législations internes des pays européens. Ainsi les banques belges, françaises ou allemandes ne sont pas assujetties à des contraintes de reporting automatique pour leurs propres résidents nationaux. En revanche, les banques d'un pays tiers (luxembourgeoises en l'occurrence) le sont pour des services transfrontaliers à ces mêmes personnes. La directive fiscalité de l'épargne énonce d'ailleurs elle-même le principe de la non discrimination en dans son 4ème considérant.
  

Si le dossier fiscalité ne progresse pas, ce n'est donc pas la faute aux Luxembourgeois mais bien à ceux qui nient non seulement ces évidences, mais qui nient l'existence et la légitimité pure et simple du marché européen des services financiers. Depuis la fin des années 1980 il est légal de placer son argent à l'étranger. Des conditions équitables devraient dès lors être créées pour tous les intermédiaires financiers opérant sur ce marché sans privilégier l'épargne domestique.

With the holy month of Ramadan starting next week, the time seems ripe to buy shares in Muslim countries. Researchers have ascertained that during the month of Ramadan, stock returns are almost nine times higher in predominately Muslim countries than during other times of the year. http://bit.ly/aWUCTI

Having studied stock returns during Ramadan for 14 predominantly Muslim countries over the years 1989-2007, they noticed that the mean annualised return realised by investors during the holy month was 38.09 percent, compared to a rather modest gain of 4.32 percent throughout the rest of the year.

One might argue that during Ramadan, investors simply have more time to think about investments, rather than enjoying the delights of their gastronomy. But researchers Ahmad Etebari (University of New Hampshire), Jedrzej Pawel Bialkowski (University of Canterbury) and Tomasz Piotr Wisniewski (University of Leicester) have another explanation for the phenomenon. They believe that their findings are an indication that Ramadan positively affects investor psychology and leads to an optimistic state of mind that extends to investment decisions: "Ramadan brings about a sense of solidarity among Muslims, enhances their satisfaction with life and encourages optimistic beliefs. This optimism affects investor sentiment and decisions leading to the price run-ups."

If this is right, that would be great. Solidarity! Satisfaction with life! Optimistic beliefs! and: Investment decisions! Isn't that exactly what we all need to get out of the financial crisis and boost our Western economies? Politicians in Europe, the US and around: stop thinking about rescue schemes, tax incentives and subsidies, convince your populations to start a sound fasting period! The resulting optimistic mood will give a new kick to economic activity and will help you save a lot of money that you will be able to spend elsewhere. To counteract the resulting complaints by the  food industry for example.

It must be widely known  by now that many traditional media are struggling for survival in the face of ever growing competition from the so-called new media like blogs and social platforms. This is deplorable, because traditional media - at least the serious ones - offer a set of valuable virtues compared to most of the new media: impartiality and neutrality, professionalism and sound press ethics. Their duty to publish information correctly and promptly and to verify whether the information given is correct makes a professional journalist an efficient filter of what might be considered as "news", thus guaranteeing the integrity of its news reports.

Compared to traditional media, the Internet looks like a jungle. Anyone can launch blog posts and dispatch stories, rumors, gossip, hearsays... under no control of any authority.

Some think that they can avoid trouble by simply adding a statement at the very end of a blog post saying : "Information contained in this article is not guaranteed to be accurate.  Do your own research."

That's what a certain "Alban, a personal finance writer at Home Loan Finder" did in his research-light contribution "Where are the World's Tax Havens" posted these days on various websites (http://bit.ly/cgfEv1 ; http://bit.ly/bDoCdF).

This is what he writes about Luxembourg : "Luxemburg is the richest member state of the European Union and is Europe's number on investment fund centre, as well as being the world's leading hub for global fund distribution. Luxemburg is also not worried about what happened to their neighbour Liechtenstein, because in Luxemburg the laws prohibit them from revealing bank information to the outside world, unless it is a criminal matter."

So many hoaxes in only a few lines !

• No Mr Alban, unfortunately Luxembourg is not the richest member state of the European Union. It should be general knowledge now that the figures regarding the GDP per capita (which are at the origin of the perception that Luxembourg is one of the richest countries in the World) are completely distorted by the fact that the more than 147,000 commuters from neighbour countries working in Luxembourg (that has a population of only 500,000) are not taken into account when calculating the GDP/capita.
• Yes,  Luxembourg is Europe's number on investment fund centre, as well as being the world's leading hub for global fund distribution. But since you seem to assume that this is due to tax advantages, you are wrong. Investment funds do not enjoy any special tax treatment in Luxembourg. The tax regime applying to investments in Luxembourg funds is that of the investor's country of residence.
  

Why compare Luxembourg with Liechtenstein, a country - according to Mr. Alban - that was "the setting for the discovery of the largest case of tax evasion in Germany's history. with just 35,000 inhabitants, 70,000 foundations, but 110,000 million Euros deposited in anonymous bank accounts, a list of European tycoons was discovered to be using coded accounts to hide money which was not declared to the treasury...."

No, Mr Alaban:

• Liechtenstein is not a neighbour of Luxembourg.
• in Luxembourg, we have no foundations comparable to those in Liechtenstein.
• in Luxembourg, anonymous / coded accounts are prohibited by law.
• in Luxembourg the revealing of bank information is not limited to criminal matters, since Luxembourg adopted the OECD standards on information exchange more than a year ago.
  

My suggestion to Mr. Alban, and to bloggers and self-declared investigators of any kind: The statement that "information contained in this article is not guaranteed to be accurate" implies that your contribution is of no use to the reader. Such a statement does not absolve an author from responsibility for carefully checking the accurateness of what he writes. So if you doubt yourself that the information contained in your article is accurate, simply refrain from publishing it.