Europe, Offshore Tax Haven | featured news

Luxembourg says it will exchange information with the rest of Europe to help fight tax evasion. The initiative, which is to start in 2015, follows international pressure on Luxembourg to end its policy of banking secrecy that critics say has helped people hide money from tax authorities. Luxembourg, a tiny country of half a million people, boasts a huge financial industry with more than 3 trillion euros ($4 trillion) in assets.

For decades, Switzerland was the place where money went to hide. Cash sent to its mountain aeries was protected by some of the strictest secrecy laws in the world.