Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz has told British Prime Minister Gordon Brown that there are no grounds for Switzerland to be placed on a G20 list of uncooperative states.

Give me more please...

Well, d'uh, Gordon is worried about his own little tax evasion scheme in London, Guernsey and the rest...

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A fine is a tax for doing wrong.
A tax is a fine for doing well.

The biggest tax haven in Europe is not what you might expect

Excellent article Grum! Although for some reason the second page is blank, maybe it's the StC effect

I think that Brown may have made a mistake going after the Swiss, people can say what they like about them but they do have transparency pretty sorted (strange terminology to describe the secrecy laws I know), in that they make it clear what the rules are and expect people to deal with it as opposed to trying to sell them as something they are not.

I'll bet there are a few more skeletons in Darling's closet waiting to make the news.

Looking back this has been well discussed
The golden rule that saves the super-rich millions | UK news | The Guardian
James Meek on Britian's status as a haven for the ultra-rich | Money | The Guardian

and more recently
Comment: Darling's review of offshore regulation is all smoke and mirrors
Tax fears over 'non-dom' exodus from Britain

Fact of the matter is that the Swiss are too small and isolated to defend themselves.

There's another side to that one. A friend recently told me that his Swiss father, who is now retired and living in the UK, cannot afford to pay the 30K p.a. He had the choice of becoming domiciled and now paying tax on his pension or leaving the country. He's apparently lived in the UK for over 30 years, so it wasn't really a choice for him.

It's not hard to imagine a "brain drain" effect for younger, more mobile people for whom 30K is a lot of dosh.