To differentiate between a gift and a bribe is difficult enough in the colder parts of Europe, around the Mediterranean it's impossible.

I belong to an expat 'help' organisation and we have access to local advisors, often minor politicians, who are very helpful at times.

In return, we sometimes give them gifts like a box of chocolates at Christmas, or free translation services.

A gift or a bribe?

And where is that nice man Nigel Farage - scourge of the unelected "ruling elite" of the EU when you want him most

back in the day - when I was a local councillor, we were there to do something for the people without any form of payment, using our spare time to try to help and make a difference, fix injustices etc etc

but Cameron claims sub-£1.00 on his expenses


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And exactly how did the US profit from the war in Iraq? And don't start the "war for oil" rhetoric again. That propaganda has been proven patently false, and in fact, Russia, Europe and China have been the major beneficiaries of it, so it's a little difficult to claim it was conducted solely for the US to get Iraq's oil.

In fairness, it can be argued that the coalition did choose to take action to prevent Saddam from pursuing his stated goal of taking control of all middle east oil, which if achieved, would not only have involved a long and bloody conflict destroying much of the middle east, but also would have had extremely dire consequences for the entire world.

Now, I don't agree at all with how the US handled it, nor that it was an imminent threat as many claimed it to be, but I wholly disagree that the motivation was simply greed and self-servitude, as your supposition aspires to suggest.

And perhaps I need not point out the obvious; that your entire supposition suspiciously dismisses the reality that there is still no shortage of regimes that blatantly ignore all international agreements in favour of their own political and monetary gains whilst blaming everyone else for their actions. The US, UK, Europe, or any of their allies simply aren't in that category, by any measure.

Anyway, back to the topic: It isn't difficult to find out where the most corruption exists in the world, and it ain't in the US or Europe, despite Spain and a few others holding a few championship cups. In fact, it seems that those that you consistently want to claim are the bad guys turn out be amongst the precious few good ones on the planet.

Because they have seen that the Poles etc, have got away with 'business as usual' whilst gaining access to the entire trade and labour markets wthin the EU.

Look into your heart and soul and I'm sure you will be able to answer that one. It depends on the intent of your gifts.

Thanks for the technical description.

I was only pointing out that many, if not most of the so-called "tax havens" in the world are simply those that impose lower taxation than others, are fully compliant with OECD rules, yet are demonised as "tax havens" simply because they impose lower taxes and are open to anyone to participate.

Gibraltar is a good example. Switzerland and Liechtenstein, Channel islands, Seychelles, Mauritius, Panama, Cayman and BVI are other good examples. All host plenty of perfectly legitimate "clean" money, and are fully OECD compliant.

And it's somewhat amusing when you realise that you don't have to be a "tax haven" to have plenty of so-called "black" money floating around - Spain is a perfect example of that. Nothing squeaky-clean about our economy.

Yet we consider them all to be dubious "tax havens" of a lesser legitimacy than our own high-tax jurisdictions where maximising tax collection is a top priority, and wasting it and/or lining pockets with it is all but a national sport.

No wonder so many choose to legally and legitimately set up a company in BVI to make better use of their wealth, rather than handing it over to a bunch of bureaucrats who only set up their own BVI companies...

Considering all that, I just find it difficult to believe the dubious distinction of all these so-called "tax havens" is merely a coincidence.

Margallo welcomes Andorra ‘no longer tax haven’

Spain is supporting Andorra in its bid for greater access to the EU. José Manuel García-Margallo, Spain’s Foreign Minister yesterday met with his Andorran counterpart Guilbert Saboya.

A Spanish Foreign Minister spokesman said that the meeting was used to “review the excellent bilateral relations between the two countries and to exchange views on relations between the European Union and Andorra”.

At the bilateral level, Sr Margallo praised the particularly close relations between the two societies, as well as the “constructive dialogue” between authorities to respond to the issues of mutual interest.

Sr Margallo later said he hoped that negotiations that began in October 2012 can continue on the convention to avoid double taxation between our two countries, reaffirming Spain’s commitment.

He also reiterated his interest in continued improvements to regulations on professions, recognising that Andorra would like to open its economy and forge closer ties with the EU, and especially with Spain and France. The minister expressed interest in applying the Foreign Investment Law (LIE) which provides for the liberalisation of the exercise of liberal professions in Andorra.

Madrid said that Sr Margallo welcomed the steps being taken by the Government of Andorra to open and liberalise its economy, which will be beneficial not only for the Principality of Andorra, but also for its neighbours and main trading partners, most notably Spain.

The foreign minister also praised “the progress made in establishing a tax system that is compatible with European systems, which has led to Andorra no longer being considered a tax haven by the EU, something Spain had been requesting. García-Margallo expressed his hope that the new individual income tax will come into force on 1 January 2015 as scheduled.”

“At the European level, the Government of Spain, which has traditionally supported the strengthening of relations between the EU and Andorra, now welcomes recent advances being made, given its understanding that the EU is the route to success for reformulating the basis for our bilateral trade relations. He also indicated that these developments will entail the progressive adjustment of Andorran legislation to European domestic market legislation.”

As part of tightening up it tax regimes Portugal blacklisted a number of locations where properties were registered as a means of avoiding tax.
Gibraltar is one but the US state of Delaware is OK !!
But now in both Spain and Portugal the " Golden Visa " and similar policies are aimed at attracting " cash rich " buyers and I doubt that there are many questions being asked as to where their cash comes from.

The US state of Delaware imposes no tax for foreign-owned companies who do not conduct business in the US, which makes it attractive for obvious reasons. But companies still have to be transparent and are required declare their income & P/L, just as in Gibraltar and... and.. and..

Then there's those other states in the US that have no VAT or state income tax at all. No, they aren't just more favourable tax policies, I reckon they're also "tax havens" like all the rest of those dubious countries who simply don't believe in oppressive taxation, like Gibraltar.

From the Wikipedia link posted earlier.

You may note that Gibraltar is not mentioned anywhere, however some of you are too biased to understand that.

The U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research has suggested that roughly 15% of the countries in the world are tax havens, that these countries tend to be small and affluent, and that better governed and regulated countries are more likely to become tax havens, and are more likely to be successful if they become tax havens.[28]

No two commentators can generally agree on a "list of tax havens", but the following countries are commonly cited[by whom?] as falling within the "classic" perception of a sovereign tax haven.

Andorra
Bahamas
Cyprus
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg—primarily a conduit tax haven [29]
Monaco
Panama
Samoa
San Marino
Seychelles

Other sovereign countries that have such low tax rates and lax regulation that they can be considered semi-tax havens[30] are :

Ireland[31]
Netherlands—primarily a conduit tax haven [29]
Switzerland

Non-sovereign jurisdictions commonly labelled as tax havens include:

British Crown Dependency
Guernsey
Jersey [32]
Isle of Man

British Overseas Territory
Bermuda [33]
British Virgin Islands
Cayman Islands [34]
Turks and Caicos Islands
Campione d'Italia, Italy
Kurdistan,Iraq
Curaçao (Netherlands)
Labuan, Malaysia
Jebel Ali Free Zone, United Arab Emirates

Alaska, United States
Delaware, United States [35]
Florida, United States
Nevada, United States
Texas, United States
South Dakota, United States
United States Virgin Islands (United States)
Puerto Rico (United States) [36]
Washington, United States
Wyoming, United States

Some tax havens including some of the ones listed above do charge income tax as well as other taxes such as capital gains, inheritance tax, and so forth. Criteria distinguishing a taxpayer from a non-taxpayer can include citizenship and residency and source of income. For example, in the United States foreign nonresidents are not charged various taxes[37] including income tax on interest on U.S. bank deposits by income tax; since the Clinton administration the IRS has proposed collecting information on these depositors to share with their home countries as a regulation; these regulations were eventually finalized in April 17, 2012.[38]

On 10 September 2013 British Prime Minister David Cameron said "I do not think it is fair any longer to refer to any of the Overseas Territories or Crown Dependencies as tax havens. They have taken action to make sure that they have fair and open tax systems. It is very important that our focus should now shift to those territories and countries that really are tax havens."[39] Mr Cameron's comments were interpreted as a direct reference to Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands, and followed a period of negotiations with those (and other) British territories during which those jurisdictions had made a number of concessions relating to tax transparency and sharing of information.[40] Anti-tax haven pressure groups immediately accused the Prime Minister of taking leave of his senses, and commenting sarcastically "It was Cameron's father's tax haven activities that are repotted [sic] to have paid for his Eton education. Was it ever realistic to think he'd change his spots?".[41]

Interesting about Delaware. My neighbour in Marbella, a Spanish Lawyer made a few trips there. I wondered why he chose that place. He used to take his golf clubs too!

Ever since expats were elected as local councillors in Spain, the political ruling classes and local heavyweights have become most helpful to expat causes, which had been previously ignored. The odd box of chocolates or decent bottle of brandy doesn't go amiss either.

Our street lights work, the streets are clean, the rubbish is collected and the police will arrest the burglars when we give them the car numbers of the villains through our neighbourhood watch schemes.

We even had Hacienda on our side but they've stopped talking to us since the modelo 720 debacle.

Going back circa 25 years I worked for a CEO who wouldn't accept any hospitality whatsoever, albeit that I've known Labour councilors who were as bent as butcher's hooks, along with building inspectors who collected their brown envelopes from cowboy builders in the tap room of a suburban pub on Friday evenings.

I always worked on the premise that if someone needed me to travel to a place that I didn't want to visit, at a time that was inconvenient to me, to further their own interests, that the least that they could do was to foot the bill. I've never actually been offered a bribe in money terms, so can't tell you how I would have reacted, however the following comes to mind.

Very rich guy to lovely young woman, "If I offered you ten thousand pounds to sleep with me, would you do it?"

Young woman to rich guy, "Of course I would".

Rich guy to young woman, "If I offered you ten pounds, would you still sleep with me?"

Young woman to rich guy, "No, what sort of girl do you take me for?"

Rich guy to young woman, "We've already ascertained that, we are simply haggling over the price".

No need to sully the standing of attractive young women world over with that quip. The fact of the matter being that everyone has HIS or her price. It's up to each us to make the decision whether what we are doing is ethical or not and whether we can sleep at night with a clean conscious. No doubt, having a clean conscious does not take priority to a good section of humanity when it comes down to personal gain. Greed usually wins.