"And speaking of finance, the island has no capital gains tax, stamp duty or inheritance tax, making it an enticing prospect for many." This one sentence sums up why the Isle of Man exists the way it does. What a puff piece. Britain/UK/whatever are full of these little places to hide your money. That's all this is. Yet another crowny thing that allows the rich to avoid paying their due in an undemocratic society.
How do you separate avoidance of tax with competition between taxation venues? The IOM (and other small jurisdictions) cannot compete with larger countries on manufacturing and other big industry, but their small size and low cost of government allows them to be very competitive with Tax. If an individual is able to move his finances out of a country to a more competitive jurisdiction, isn't' that the fault of the or…
You don't understand how secrecy works. A simple way to evade tax is to set-up a company in the tax heaven and send "fake" bills or loans to the real company. Without cooperation of the tax heaven country there is little the on-shore country can do except to black-list the said tax heaven from the financial market. As it happens special interests groups from the UK opposed a black-list of Isle of Man or Virgin Island.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/dec/05/eu-blacklis...