Duncan Wigan publish an article with Ronen Palen in Global Policy

Herding Cats and Taming Tax Havens: The US Strategy of ‘Not In My Backyard’

Recent G8 and G20 statements, combined with a number of OECD campaigns have given an impression that the world  has entered a phase of re-invigorated multilateral efforts to combat tax abuse. We argue that this impression is not  entirely mistaken, but the centre of gravity in the battle against tax abuse generally, and tax havens specifically, is shifting  decidedly towards unilateral approaches. The US is, in particular, in flexing its muscles attempting to ensure that  the various mechanisms used to evade taxation and perpetrated through tax havens have little impact on its ‘back  yard’. We call this the ‘Not In My Back Yard’ (NIMBY) principle of regulation, which underpins the new Foreign Account  Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). The NIMBY principle, we argue, is likely to be adopted by other large political entities.

Duncan Wigan & Ronen Palen: Herding Cats and Taming Tax Havens: The US Strategy of ‘Not In My Backyard’, pp. 1-27 in Global Policy, Vol. 5, 2015,  Wiley Online,  10.1111/1758-5899.12135