The German public’s outrage that hundreds of their fellow citizens are suspected of tax evasion via Liechtenstein trusts is making life uncomfortable for the principality and for other havens that refuse to co-operate with foreign authorities. Action should be measured and proportionate, but the European Union and other large jurisdictions should act together to put pressure on havens.

Tax evasion is a crime, it is serious, and it has to be countered. It is theft from the evader’s fellow citizens, who have to pay more to provide public services. Tax havens that help evaders, and enjoy high levels of per capita income for their own small populations as a result, are parasitic.