I worked as a lawyer in another European country for several years and at least once a week I would be contacted by Cypriotic lawyers, accountants and financia

I worked as a lawyer in another European country for several years and at least once a week I would be contacted by Cypriotic lawyers, accountants and financial advisors who wanted to sell what I would describe as tax evasion schemes to my clients. The thing is that the banking laws of Cyprus permitted funds to be placed with few questions asked and the tax laws of Cyprus were designed to attract foreign companies. Cyprus had a 10 percent corporate tax and an almost 0 percent royalty tax. So the idea was for foreign companies to place their IPR in a Cyprus shell company and license it to their real companies back in Germany, the UK Scandinavia etc. http://www.cyprusprofile.com/documents/uploads/publications/The_Cyprus_new_IP_Regime.PDF http://www.cyprusprofile.com/documents/uploads/publications/... This way Cyprus piggybacked on other European countries for year. Now Cyprus is being rescued by the very countries that let the little island get away with these shenanigans for years. It was the Cyprus government itself that wanted normal depositors to pay the 10 percent tax on deposits because the Cyprus government was afraid of destoying the lucrative tax evasion business. The EU only wanted to levy it on the larger depositors. In the EU there has never been a general convention or social contract that larger deposits are safe. Only deposits up to 100,000 EUR. It is true that during the recent financial crisis larger depositors, bondholders, other creditors and even equity stakes have been saved again and again, but this is the exception, not the normal rule.