Turks and Caicos Islands

A British overseas territory in the Caribbean, just east of Cuba, just north of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), forty islands in all, eight of them inhabited, with breath-taking views of financial services, large numbers of low-lying tourist resorts, and waterfalls upon waterfalls of income that pour in from all manner of sources, though few of those are taxes, because the islands are ideologically opposed to taxes, where, if I may put it that way, taxes can be avoided.

This latter is not entirely fair. The term “breath-taking” definitely applies to the beaches, and “low-lying” to the politicians as well as to the smaller islands and what are called cays - sandy islands on the surface of coral reefs. The waterfalls, on the other hand, are mostly Atlantic waves, and in 2012 the government finally agreed, after years of procrastination or even downright refusal, to sign an international agreement that obliges them to share tax information with those European countries who have the power to demand it of them. 

The Turks and Caicos Islands also claim to have the oldest population in the world (oldest in terms of the age of the still-living rather than the longevity of human habitation) after South Florida, though most of these continue to hold US or Canadian citizenship, and like the bird population tend to fly home for the summer.

Marks for: 63 (Turks and Caicos' ranking on the 2013 Financial Secrecy Index)

Marks against: 78 (the number of points out of 100 awarded on that index - to understand more, click here)

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