Dear Sir,

So, yesterday I was fortunate enough to have stumbled across a very interesting article on the web. Coming from a valid source, Bloomberg, I was captivated by the title “The world’s favourite new tax haven is the United States”.

After reading the article, I found myself rather numb. A few years back, the United States introduced Fatca (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act), a global tax law aimed at cutting off banks from access to critical US financial markets if they didn’t pass along American client data. And, boy, did that idea work. Every country from around the world is now complying, including Russia and China. Banking will never be the same.

So, why am I writing this? It seems we have all been swindled by the US. You can now help your clients move their fortunes to the United States, free of taxes and hidden from their governments. Some are calling it the new Switzerland. Wasn’t this wise of the US?

The article says: “After years of lambasting other countries for helping rich Americans hide their money offshore, the US is emerging as a leading tax and secrecy haven for rich foreigners. By resisting new global disclosure standards, the US is creating a hot new market, becoming the go-to place to stash foreign wealth. Everyone from London lawyers to Swiss trust companies is getting in on the act, helping the world’s rich move accounts from places like the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands to Nevada, Wyoming and South Dakota.”

Peter A. Cotorceanu, a lawyer at Anaford AG, a Zurich law firm, wrote in a recent legal journal: “How ironic — no, how perverse — that the US, which has been so sanctimonious in its condemnation of Swiss banks, has become the banking secrecy jurisdiction du jour.

“That giant sucking sound you hear? It is the sound of money rushing to the US.”

The article continues: “Rothschild, the centuries-old European financial institution, has opened a trust company in Reno, Nevada, a few blocks from the Harrah’s and Eldorado casinos.

“It is now moving the fortunes of wealthy foreign clients out of offshore havens such as Bermuda, subject to the new international disclosure requirements, and into Rothschild-run trusts in Nevada, which are exempt.”

So, at what point will the remaining global countries of the world come together to force the US to disclose what funds are coming into their “offshore” institutions?

What is good for the goose should be good for the gander.

KATHY CERVINO, Livorno, Italy