Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World

Treasure Islands

This is the ugliest chapter in global economic affairs since slavery - and secretive offshore tax havens are at the heart of the trouble.

Tax havens are the most important single reason why poor people and poor countries stay poor.Investigative journalist Nicholas Shaxson exposes the hidden architecture of the global financial system - the offshore networks that allow corporations and elites to avoid tax, hide wealth and distort democracy.From the City of London to the Caribbean and beyond, Treasure Islands reveals how trillions vanish into secret offshore tax havens every year. Engrossing, urgent and deeply researched, it’s essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the corruption at the heart of the global economy and how it can be stopped.‘An utterly superb book’ Jeffrey Sachs‘Fascinating, chilling’ Paul Krugman

Shaxson combines meticulous research with amusing anecdotes, resulting in a very readable account of the murky world of offshore and a strong moral message that the system needs to be changed

Excellent... Shaxson comes as close as anyone ever has in getting the crux of the tax haven conundrum, which is to attempt to answer the question: why are they tolerated? - Evening Standard

Not just a crucial exposé of the corrupt systems endemic in the global economy, but also a rousing call to do something about them

Perhaps the most important book published in the UK so far this year

Trade and investments can play a profoundly productive role on the world economy. But so much of the capital flows that we see are associated with money laundering, tax evasion, and the wholesale larceny of assets often of very poor countries. These thefts are greatly facilitated by special tax and accounting rules or designed to "attract capital" and embodying obscure and opaque mechanisms. Shaxson does an outstanding and socially valuable job in penetrating the impenetrable and finds a deeply shocking world

At last, a readable - indeed gripping - book which explains the nuts and bolts of tax havens. More importantly, it lays bare the mechanism that financial capital has been using to stay in charge: capturing government policy-making around the world, shaking off such irritants as democracy and the rule of law, and making sure that suckers like you and me pay for its operators' opulent lifestyles

The struggle against money power is a struggle for human freedom, and Nicholas Shaxson's investigation is a timely exposé of where the plunder is buried

John Pilger, broadcaster and author of Heroes

A gripping read... an account illuminated by anecdotes that are often more James Bond than eurobond... Shaxson shows us that the global financial machine is broken and that very few of us have noticed

A gobsmacking indictment of a global conspiracy that makes City bonuses seem like small change

A chronicle of capitalism's frailty and foulness that digs far beyond its tax haven title and indicts the system that renders such crookedness not merely possible, but entirely predictable. It's not the banks or the hedge funds or the tame solicitors. It's the politicians as well, our politicians. It's not just the Cayman Islanders or the Swiss or the Panamanians. It's London and Washington, the OECD and the World Bank. It's the whole damned thing

Treasure Islands is the best book on tax havens, ever. It shines a light in some very dark places. It reads like a thriller. The shocking thing is, it's all true. The world's suppliers of corruption services - the bankers, lawyers and accountants working from tax havens - won't want you to read this book. Which is exactly why you should

Richard Murphy, Director of Tax Research UK

A blistering account of the role that tax havens play in international finance... Brilliant

Far more than an exposé, Treasure Islands is a brilliantly illuminating, forensic analysis of where economic power really lies, and the shockingly corrupt way in which it behaves. If you're wondering how ordinary people ended up paying for a crisis caused by the reckless greed of the banking industry, this compellingly readable book provides the answers

David Wearing, co-editor of New Left Project

In this riveting, well-written expose, Shaxson goes deep into the largely unexamined realm of offshore money. In the process, he reveals that this shadow world is no mere sideshow, but is troublingly central to modern finance, with the US and the UK as leaders. The resulting abuses are widespread, ranging from tax revenue stripping from African nations to individuals and corporations escaping enforcement and accountability. A must read for anyone who wants to understand the hidden reasons why financial services firms have become so powerful and impossible to reform

Yves Smith, creator of Naked Capitalism and author of Econned

They who sold us globalisation as a way of the whole world getting richer with fair rules, cheated us by letting the rich and powerful go "offshore". This gripping exposé should help end the scandal

Anthony Barnett, founder of openDemocracy

Possibly the most important political book that I have read since The Spirit Level

Stuart Weir, co-founder of Charter 88, former editor of the New Statesman

He has prised the lid off an important and terrifying can of worms

A welcome account of how the sun is never allowed to set on the British empire's old islands, whose fiscal pirates hoard the tax-free treasures of the rich

Shaxson delves into capitalism's secret nooks and tells us about how a culture of secrecy can perpetuate itself. Very interesting

A compelling read [...] an important and very much a live topic, it'll take you a few hours to read the book but it will be a worthwhile investment of time

What makes this such a good read for the layman is that the author employs all his journalistic skill (he used to work at Reuters) to illustrate his arguments and uses real examples to real examples to illustrate complex issues

This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the world we live in

This engrossing book about the offshore banking racket, with its eye-opening scrutiny of tax havens and the suited scoundrels who profit from them, will make you think again about the murkier side of the City...This first-rate forensic work ends with a plea that the closed City "must be abolished and submerged into a...fully democratic London"

[An] informed polemic against finance capital

Now more than a decade old, this is still the best introduction to the world of tax havens

Nicholas Shaxson is the author of Poisoned Wells, the Dirty Politics of African Oil, and an experienced journalist who has written regularly for the Financial Times, The Economist, Vanity Fair and many others.

Nicholas Shaxson

Utterly convincing… The Finance Curse is a radical and important manifesto for improving Britain

This is a splendid polemic against modern finance, in general, and the City of London, in particular. It is hard-hitting, well written and informative. Instead of enabling productive investment, the predominant activity of contemporary finance is rent extraction. This comes in many different guises: modern finance does not only promote tax avoidance and evasion, but, argues Shaxson, enables gangsterism and corruption on an enormous scale. I fear he is right.

This superbly written book shows definitively how global finance has been grossly mis-sold to us all. It’s a must-read for anyone who lives, works and spends in this country

Gripping . . . a superbly written overview

Searing… Shaxson has form on being prescient ... his ideas should not be dismissed lightly

If you want to understand why walls of money can be bad for an economy like Britain’s, and what we should do about it, The Finance Curse is essential reading.

Eight years ago Nick Shaxson wrote one of the best books about modern finance… Now Shaxson is back, with something bigger to say… forensic accounting analysis, sharp reporting and interviews

The book’s principle virtue springs from Shaxson’s skill in unpicking the complexity of the system and explaining it in layman’s terms… enlightening

A powerful call to arms against a self-serving, over-bearing and growth-sapping global finance system.

Stewart Lansley, author of A Sharing Economy and The Cost of Inequality

A vital contribution to the debate on the future of capitalism and a riveting account of how we got where we are

Nicholas Shaxson’s previous compelling work on tax havens makes him a brand you can trust if you like to purple with indignation at financial impropriety on the largest scale

Through Shaxson’s journalistic, investigative and analytical mind, he holds a mirror up to us, exposing big data sets, offshore networks and the hidden extraction engines of private equity and hedge funds. He helps us broaden our minds to the subtle webs and cultural and materialistic engines which undermine liberal principles of freedom, democracy, fairness and equality.

Communist Party of Britain Marxist-Leninist

How global finance is making us all poorer

This is a book that none of us can afford to ignore – an agenda-setting, campaigning investigation that shows how global finance works for the few and not the many. 
 
** A Financial Times Book of the Year ** 
‘Essential reading’ YANIS VAROUFAKIS 
 
We need finance – but when finance grows too big it becomes a curse. 
 
The City of London is the single biggest drain on our resources, sucking talent out of every sphere, siphoning wealth and hoovering up government time. Yet to be ‘competitive’, we’re told we must turn a blind eye to money laundering and appease big business with tax cuts. 
 
Tracing the curse back through economic history, Nicholas Shaxson uncovers how we got to this point. Moving from offshore tax havens to the bizarre industry of wealth management, he tells the explosive story of how finance established a stranglehold on society – and reveals how we can begin to break free. 
 
‘A radical, urgent and important manifesto for improving our country’ 
 Oliver Bullough, Observer 
 
‘Superbly written… A must-read’ 
 Misha Glenny, author of McMafia 
 
‘Hard-hitting, well written and informative’ 
 Financial Times

Nicholas Shaxson

Praise for The Finance Curse

**Utterly convincing… The Finance Curse is a radical and important manifesto for improving Britain**

This is a splendid polemic against modern finance, in general, and the City of London, in particular. It is hard-hitting, well written and informative. Instead of enabling productive investment, the pr ...

This superbly written book shows definitively how global finance has been grossly mis-sold to us all. It’s a must-read for anyone who lives, works and spends in this country

**Utterly convincing… The Finance Curse is a radical and important manifesto for improving Britain**

This is a splendid polemic against modern finance, in general, and the City of London, in particular. It is hard-hitting, well written and informative. Instead of enabling productive investment, the pr ...

This superbly written book shows definitively how global finance has been grossly mis-sold to us all. It’s a must-read for anyone who lives, works and spends in this country

**Utterly convincing… The Finance Curse is a radical and important manifesto for improving Britain**

This is a splendid polemic against modern finance, in general, and the City of London, in particular. It is hard-hitting, well written and informative. Instead of enabling productive investment, the pr ...

This superbly written book shows definitively how global finance has been grossly mis-sold to us all. It’s a must-read for anyone who lives, works and spends in this country

Books by Nicholas Shaxson

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