Originally published June 16 2005
Scottish dodge taxes by moving to Cayman Islands
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
An article in The Scotsman describes the pros and cons of the current Tax havens, including Paraguay, the Cayman Islands, The British Virgin Islands, Estonia, and ironically enough, the American state of Wyoming.
And desperate to avoid the Holyrood election in just two years' time?
Then join what may well be Scotland's fastest-growing club this morning: the Escape Club.
The country, according to the CIA factbook, "has a market economy marked by a large informal sector".
More alluring, surely, have to be the Cayman Islands, an English-speaking dependent territory of the UK with a population of 30,000, some of it intermarried.
There are no taxes in the Cayman Islands.
Government revenue comes from customs duties and annual fees on corporations.
But opening a bank account can be tricky.
There is no capital-gains tax, wealth tax or gift taxes.
Income tax is being scrapped this year and replaced by a payroll tax of 14 per cent, of which 8 per cent is payable by employers.
However, like the Cayman Islands, it has chosen to apply a withholding tax on savings paid to nationals of EU member states.
There is no income tax to speak of, but social-security payments and tax on locally sourced businesses can range up to 40 per cent.
High on any tax refugee's list must be Vanuatu, a group of 80 mountainous tropical islands on the eastern seaboard of Australia.
Economic growth is slow because of adverse climatic conditions, most goods are imported and import duties are high.
My personal favourite, both for its topographical similarity to Scotland and ease of entry (and exit, should things go wrong) is the American state of Wyoming (population 501,000, capital Cheyenne).
The landscape is in many parts similar to Scotland, but the state website instantly proclaims the difference.
Those familiar with the wonderful stories of the writer Annie Proulx will know the feeling.
This is the cradle-to-grave welfare model our politicians crave.
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