Treasure Islands Book Summary - Treasure Islands Book explained in key points
Listen to the Intro
00:00

Treasure Islands summary

Nicholas Shaxson

Tax Havens and the Men Who Stole the World

4.6 (29 ratings)
16 mins
Table of Contents

    Treasure Islands
    summarized in 7 key ideas

    Audio & text in the Blinkist app
    Key idea 1 of 7

    Tax havens are jurisdictions for secrecy.

    As you probably know, tax havens have low tax rates – for some. You might’ve heard stories of corrupt dictators or mafia bosses keeping money in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands. What’s the purpose of this?

    It’s quite simple: secrecy. A secrecy jurisdiction enables people or entities to escape certain laws and regulations by relocating their funds to hidden places.

    Tax havens don’t cooperate with authorities from other countries. You can’t tax someone without knowing how much money they have. This is why your bank notifies the authorities when money is put into your account.

    Tax havens don’t provide this information to authorities, however. They only provide information if the authorities already know the specifics of your offshore banking, and even then there’s a process to go through.

    Even if a tax haven does share information with law enforcement authorities, they still provide services to protect their clients.

    Many tax havens have flee causes, for example. That means that if Interpol comes looking for your money, your assets will automatically be moved to another place, like an account in a different tax haven.

    Ultimately, tax havens are able to provide almost perfect secrecy. Another way they do this is through the use of trusts.

    In a trust, the person who pays the money is the owner, and they have to designate a certain goal for their fund. There’s also a professional manager called the trustee.

    The goal of a trust is that the money should be paid back to the owner or their relatives after some amount of time. The trustee is often a professional lawyer who manages hundreds of trusts at once.

    Tax authorities can’t know who the owner is – they only know the registered trustee. Lawyers can’t tell anyone who their beneficiaries are because that would be a breach of confidentiality. The real information stays hidden.

    Want to see all full key ideas from Treasure Islands?

    Key ideas in Treasure Islands

    More knowledge in less time
    Read or listen
    Read or listen
    Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.
    Find your next read
    Find your next read
    Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.
    Shortcasts
    Shortcasts New
    We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.

    What is Treasure Islands about?

    Treasure Islands offers insight into one of the darkest parts of the financial world: tax havens. It explains how wealthy people and corporations are able to avoid paying taxes by relocating their assets offshore. Tax havens are highly damaging to all but the tiny percentage of people who can afford to use them, and they contribute to the growing gap between rich and poor.

    Best quote from Treasure Islands

    More than half of world trade passes, at least on paper, through tax havens.

    —Nicholas Shaxson
    example alt text

    Who should read Treasure Islands?

    • Anyone interested in tax havens
    • Anyone interested in economics
    • Anyone interested in global power dynamics

    About the Author

    Nicholas Shaxson is a journalist and an associate fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. He’s the author of Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil and he’s also a researcher for the Tax Justice Network.

    Categories with Treasure Islands

    Books like Treasure Islands

    People ❤️ Blinkist
    Sven O.

    It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.

    Thi Viet Quynh N.

    Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.

    Jonathan A.

    Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.

    Renee D.

    Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.

    People also liked

    Start growing with Blinkist now
    26 Million
    Downloads on all platforms
    4.7 Stars
    Average ratings on iOS and Google Play
    91%
    Of Blinkist members create a better reading habit*
    *Based on survey data from Blinkist customers
    Powerful ideas from top nonfiction

    Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 5,500+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.

    Start your free trial