© Jack Gruber-USA TODAY
News: January 6 Anniversary Coverage
(77WABC) — The United States has ranked first – and worst – in a global ranking for countries which provide financial secrecy to people like dictators, oligarchs, organized criminals and wealthy tax dodgers.
The Financial Secrecy Index 2022, released yesterday, calculates each country’s score by combining how intensely the country’s financial and legal system allows individuals to hide and launder money. The U.S. secrecy ranking stands at 67 out of 100 (with 100 being total secrecy), as it provides some 25 per cent of the world’s financial services.
It’s found to be the world’s number one financial secrecy provider by the Tax Justice Network, the charity which produces the Financial Secrecy Index. The U.S. comfortably beat out perennial tax-dodge-enablers Switzerland into second place.
Microstates Singapore, Hong Kong and Luxembourg make up the rest of the top five. Japan, Germany and the United Arab Emirates came in sixth, seventh and eighth respectively.