Tax havens questioned the legitimacy of these requests by dismissing
them as undue interference with their national tax sovereignty (Sharman,
2006: 83–86). In 2001, after fierce lobbying by corporate interests (see Ring,
2008: 24–32), the new US administration under George W. Bush declared
that ‘The United States does not support efforts to dictate to any country
what its own tax rates or tax system should be, and will not participate in
any initiative to harmonize world tax systems’ (O’Neill, 2001). While the
project had originally challenged the notion of tax sovereignty – governments
were asked to change their national tax systems – it now merely
pushes for more transparency and better information exchange between
tax havens and non-haven countries (OECD, 2001: 2004). Importantly,with
this decision, the issue of corporate tax avoidancewas off the agenda. More
transparency and better information exchange only target tax evasion by
individuals (Webb, 2004: 816).