Caruso Cabrera Decries G20's Attack on Tax Havens: 'Leave Liechtenstein Alone!'

Though most of the media haven’t noticed, one thing many of the world leaders meeting at the G20 summit in London agreed was the need to crackdown on tax havens.

As The Wall Street Journal [1]explained on April 2, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is to report tax haven cooperation by November when the finance ministers meeting in Scotland. And according to the report, if tax havens don’t comply with G20’s desire to crack down, they could face international sanctions.

CNBC’s Michelle Caruso Cabrera, who provides a Libertarian perspective for the network’s show “Power Lunch,” had a problem with that goal of the G20.

“We haven’t talked at all about the G20 and what makes me crazy is they want to go after the tax havens out there,” Caruso Cabrera said on the April 2 broadcast. “Tax havens are good. Leave Liechtenstein alone. We all need tax competition. We don’t, we can’t allow this to happen.”

Right now Liechtenstein and other countries with low tax rates provide larger nations an incentive to not allow their tax rates to get out of control so that countries remain competitive. Liechtenstein, a tiny country in Western Europe, [2]has thrived thanks to its maximum 20-percent business tax rate.

However, as CNBC Washington correspondent John Harwood pointed out, the leaders of the G20 are speaking out in unity about going after these tax havens, to the dismay of Caruso Cabrera. She insisted this would encourage third-world countries with a disregard for sanctions to recruit corporations by lowering their tax rates and therefore, line the pockets of brutal dictators.

“They are so wrong, John. They are so wrong,” Caruso Cabrera said. “Darfur can then go after all the people who are – are putting money outside of the country. We are assisting dictators when we do that. That’s the problem there.”