LDF and Swiss-UK Tax Agreement
was planned as an agreement for various states. Nowadays, there are only two agreements in force.
The agreements were not as accepted as expected and negotiations were difficult due to violation of
the rule of equality.“”
It seems that the tax Justice network was right in forecasting the success of the Swiss-UK tax agree-
ment.“® The agreement will raise less money than expected and the full refund of the upfront payment
paid by Swiss banks is uncertain.“”
The agreement itself could be viewed positively, but as with the LDF, the overall aim of reducing
pressure, becoming a tax compliant financial centre and thus reducing the risks from abroad failed.
Austria and the UK were never the main drivers due to their own positions on confidentiality and off-
shore banking.
5.5 Impact on Liechtenstein
The demand from the international community for cooperation, integrity and improved transparency in
tax havens will continue.“ The signing of the Liechtenstein Declaration, the signing of the LDF and
the Liechtenstein-Austria tax agreement are all clear evidence that the government has seen what the
future holds and started to think about a change in the financial centre.” However, the LDF was seen
merely as additional compliance work from most of the small and medium-sized financial intermediar-
ies. They were not equipped with robust IT-systems and thus had to expend a lot of effort manually
screening the dossiers. Furthermore, due to a lack of expertise, most of them were unable to attract
new British clients who wanted to benefit from the LDF. This might have been different for bigger
trust companies and banks.
It is well known that the Kaiser Partner Group was strongly engaged in acquiring new UK clients.”
They mention in their annual report of 2011 that, according to a private estimate, a third of all persons
interested in the LDF asked for advice from their group.” Using Liechtenstein Foundations for asset
#7 Joecks, 2011, p. 443 & 444.
#8 tax justice network, 2011, p. 24-29.
^? SwissBanking, 2013.
3? T auber, 2010, p. 501.
?'! Roth & Thiede, 2013, p. 617.
02 They received the Spear’s Wealth Management Awards 2011 for instigating the LDF
3 Kaiser Partner Privatbank AG, 2011, p. 7.
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