Bermuda is the seventh most secretive financial jurisdiction in the world, according to the Tax Justice Network.

The survey of laws, practices and size of inflows of 60 jurisdictions gave Bermuda an "opacity index" of 92 out of 100.

What might be surprising to some, particularly after US President Barack Obama's publicly stated desire to "shut down the tax havens", is that the United States — more particularly the state of Delaware — ranks number one in the secrecy league table.

Second is Luxembourg and third Switzerland, which has had banking secrecy embedded in its laws since the 1930s and which has an "opacity index" of 100.

The other countries classed as more secretive than Bermuda are the Cayman Islands, the UK (City of London) and Ireland.

The Tax Justice Network (TJN), whose slogan is "Why tax havens cause poverty", found that the US, led by the tiny state of Delaware, took in $2.6 trillion in deposits from non-resident corporations and individuals in 2007.

"While the US has been jumping up and down and saying 'Aha, bad, wicked Swiss banks', the US is doing exactly the same things as far as non-resident bank account holders," said Sarah Lewis, executive director of the TJN, based in the UK.

Switzerland has been the poster child for financial secrecy over the past year. The US sued Swiss global banking giant UBS AG, which paid a $780 million fine to settle a lawsuit against it by the government. As part of the deal, UBS admitted it actively helped Americans evade US taxes.

The ranking is based on a composite of total offshore activity and measures such as whether a jurisdiction obtains beneficial ownership information about companies and the degree of cooperation in turning over requested financial information.

Delaware is attractive because it does not tax profits realised outside the state and does not require companies to be physically present, according to the TJN.

UBS and Credit Suisse have about 200 entities in the state, according to the group.

There are nearly 700,000 active entities registered in Delaware — and about half of those publicly traded in the United States, according to the group.

Total US deposits of non-residents rose from about $1 trillion in 2001 to $2.6 trillion in 2007, according to the study.

Bermuda's high opacity index was a result of just one positive answer to 12 questions on transparency, that being that the Island does not provide banking secrecy.

In its questions, the survey set the bar high, asking whether jurisdictions allowed the beneficial ownership of companies to be available online for less than $10 and whether the Island had at least 60 bilateral tax information-sharing agreements, for example.

Bermuda has negotiated 18 tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs) and was in June promoted to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's "white" list of countries ranked by tax transparency. The Island has also been elected vice-chair of the OECD Global Steering Group.

Last week, in a report by the UK Treasury on offshore financial centres, Bermuda got decent marks for transparency, but a call for improvement its tackling of financial crime.

Top Ten

1 USA (Delaware)

2 Luxembourg

3 Switzerland

4 Cayman Islands

5 UK (City of London)

6 Ireland

7 Bermuda

8 Singapore

9 Belgium

10 Hong Kong

Source: Tax Justice Network