The Offshore Coalition, Its Tactics and Strategies

Abstract

Tax havens are the legal framework for today’s Potemkin villages, like letterbox companies and virtual residences. Despite the relevance of the issue it has widely been ignored by academics, and political regulation lacks behind the announcements. Drawing on literature studies on the rise of tax havens and a case study on the tightening and softening of Austrian banking secrecy, this article concludes that besides globalization, and “marketization,” there is a permanent tendency of “offshorization” due to the offshore coalition, consisting of economic elites building coalitions with wider parts of society, besides tactical interventions through lobbies.