Recently in Europe Category
Although it may be as long as three months before Gibraltar learns whether or not its tax case against the European Commission has been successful, this week’s four and a half hour hearing of oral evidence before the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has strengthened a sense of quiet optimism about the outcome among the Government’s legal team.
5th Annual Amsterdam Casino Affiliate Convention Has Record Number of Exhibitors
You can meet me at the upcoming Casino Affiliate Convention and Gaming Marketing Conference, taking place May 3-5, 2007 in Amsterdam at the NH Grand Krasnapolsky Hotel. Write if you'll be there.
The European Casino Affiliate Convention covers advanced internet marketing and advertising methods for the casino, poker, bingo and sportsbook industry. As the largest convention and exposition on gaming marketing and advertising, it attracts the largest assembly of online gaming affiliates at one event. Most are high revenue producing "super affiliates."
Once upon a time, offshore investment strategies were spoken of in hushed tones. They were conversations restricted to the plush offices of private Swiss bankers, or a dinner table topic in the expensive playgrounds of the multi-millionaires.
Thanks to the information explosion of the 1990s, the internet has opened up many investment possibilities that were traditionally the exclusive preserve of the billionaire boys club.
CAC2007 Amsterdam covers European marketing and advertising for the online gaming industry. It has the highest concentration of super affiliates and is expected to be larger than any previous year. Topics discussed include: SEO to E.U. countries, poker marketing, gaming software, mobile affiliate marketing, and other important European marketing subjects. Attendance at this event is limited and is expected to sell out. The exhibit hall for the 2007 Amsterdam Casino Affiliate Convention is completely sold out.
Four UK High Street banks - understood to be HSBC, HBOS, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB - are to be forced to hand over details of their clients' offshore bank accounts after Revenue & Customs won consent from the Special Commissioner on 1 February 2007.
Revenue officials will now search the records of an estimated 100,000 customers for information on UK-domiciled individuals who have not declared income on money kept in offshore centres such as the Channel Islands. The move is expected to yield £275m in unpaid tax.
U2 racked up $389 million in gross ticket receipts, making Vertigo the second-most lucrative tour of all time, according to Billboard magazine. No.1 is the Rolling Stones' current tour, which by the end of 2006 had received $425 million.
Revenue from the Vertigo tour is funneled through companies that are mostly registered in Ireland and structured to minimize taxes. "U2 are arch-capitalists - arch-capitalists - but it looks as if they're not," says Jim Aiken, a music promoter who helped stage U2 concerts in Ireland during the 1980s and '90s.
Expert research commissioned by the Sunday Times before the new year deemed the UK the world’s first “onshore tax haven.” Acountancy firm Grant Thornton calculated the scale of tax avoidance by the super-rich and concluded that Britain’s 54 billionaires pay tax on only a tiny fraction of their wealth. The Sunday Times was forced to commission the research after HM Revenues & Customs (HMRC) refused requests by the newspaper under the freedom of information act to disclose the aggregate payments made by Britain’s super-rich.
In a surprising about-face the Italian government has announced it is going to issue 17,000 licenses for betting shops, casinos, online gaming and sports books. This is 180° change from October when Italy was still pursuing strict suppressive measures. The "big boys" of the industry are already lining up for licenses.
This will almost certainly have a cascading effect throughout the entire EU. Already Greece, Ireland and the Czech Republic are watching these developments very closely with an open mind. Spain has already decided to follow Italy's lead. They are even reports that Canada is going to defy the US and go forward with the extension of online gaming.
No one seems to care what the Bush administration or the U.S. Congress will think about this.
Yesterday, I responded to the first half of Ed’s question:
I'm interested in the Netherlands Antilles and Austria as offshore jurisdictions. Do you have any info?
Answer Part 2: Austria
Austria’s appeal is limited to a few people with very particular needs—if you had asked me about quality of life I could have waxed eloquent for hours. But you didn’t, you asked about offshore.
"Happy Thanksgiving to All! May you have fair winds and find your way safely to your home port!"
Ed asks this question:
I'm interested in the Netherlands Antilles and Austria as offshore jurisdictions. do you have any info?
Answer Part 1: The Netherlands Antilles
The first thing to note about the Netherlands Antilles (NA) is that it is in the process of ceasing to exist.
When one looks at the following list of countries, what words jump to the front of your mind?
- Macedonia
- Romania
- Kyrgyz Republic
- Estonia
- Lithuania
- Latvia
- Russia
- Serbia
- Ukraine
- Slovakia
- Georgia
Corruption? Mafia? Ethnic cleansing? Danger? War, famine death and pestilence?
The UK will set itself up as an online gambling haven but will extradite executives to the US if asked, according to Sports Minister Richard Caborn.
The US effectively banned online gambling with a new law earlier this year, and Caborn and Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell outlined plans to welcome internet gambling companies to the UK and regulate them.
Swiss banks violated the law by passing banking information on to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, the country's top data protection official said Friday. The banks, usually known for safeguarding the privacy of their clients, should have informed customers making international money transfers via the Belgium-based SWIFT money-transfer service that their data could be passed on to third parties.
According to a British newspaper, their government is considering a new law that would allow London-listed online casino gambling companies to move their operational headquarters back to Britain's mainland. The goal of the new law, according to sources, would be to provide British gamblers with a safer, more regulated atmosphere.
Continue reading "British Online Casinos may be Headed Home"
