European tax havens disclose interest yield of Finnish investments
|
|
Reliable information is now available for the first time on the yield of interest-bearing deposits by Finns in European tax havens. The Finnish Tax Administration has received its first reports from 11 countries with favourable rates on the amount of interest accrued on deposits by Finnish clients, under the terms of an EU directive on bank deposits.
The directive allows the European tax havens to keep the identity of the depositors a secret, as long as the source taxes are paid to the depositor's home country. This makes it possible to calculate the volume of interest-yielding investments made by Finnish private individuals.
The Finnish tax authorities calculate that Finns earned about EUR 8.9 million in interest on foreign bank savings of EUR 447 million in 2006. The figures included bank deposits and interest-bearing bonds and mutual fund holdings of Finnish citizens in countries offering a low tax rate.
The biggest deposits are in Switzerland and Luxembourg, where it is calculated that nearly EUR 400 million in Finnish money is being kept. Liechtenstein, which was the focus of news attention at the beginning of the year, is estimated to have only EUR 2.5 million in Finnish deposits.
The total amount of deposits has been calculated on the basis of the dividends that have been paid out. The interest rate that was used in the calculations is the European average rate of two per cent for 2006.
Project chief Markku Hirvonen at the Ministry of Finance notes that the figures do not include deposits and other interest-yielding investments made in the name of companies and foundations. Also, shareholdings and other non-interest-yielding investments by individuals do not appear in the statistics.
Hirvonen says that losses in interest income do not appear to be very significant in light of the statistics.
He feels that a far more interesting question is, where the money in the European tax havens comes from; there is no indication of the identity of the Finnish depositors, or even how many there are.
Compared with the total amount of assets held by Finnish private individuals, the approximately EUR half a billion in offshore accounts is fairly small. In 2006, Finns had about EUR 65 billion worth of deposits, interest-bearing instruments, and investments in interest-yielding mutual funds, bringing in interest of EUR 1.35 billion over the year.
Helsingin Sanomat
|
| 14.4.2008 - TODAY |
 European tax havens disclose interest yield of Finnish investments |
|
