These are small countries with a number of sophisticated ex-pats who have placed themselves in positions of power to control local regulations. The result of this control is an influx of offshore funds which they manage as financiers, local board members, solicitors or other enabling corporate professionals.
These individuals make very respectable incomes doing very little work living in an area with a rock-bottom cost of living and propagate their status in society by imposing regulations that lock in the need for their services, like local directorship quotas for local companies. An individual can sit on 30~ or so local boards for $20,000 a year each with a PO box for an office. That's a cool half-mil per year to sit on the beach, drink out of a coconut, and read a few pages of board materials a day.
This isn't the case for all companies, but it sure is the case for some.
Even if what you describe sounds terrible and immoral, thing is, it's not illegal, and it's a consequence of how our capitalistic/bureaucratic system works. Let's fix the root cause instead.
Sure you can. We just don't. If you think the EU and the US couldn't get an international tax harmonization treaty that allowed countries to follow revenue into specified haven countries and tax the cash flows where the revenues were generated, you're nuts.
Viewed as distinct, large nations have a fuckton more negotiating leverage than Vanuatu's financial industry.
The real issue is that Vanuatu and other similarly placed tax havens aren't distinct. They are run by sophisticated professionals for capital holders in developed countries.
Those are the same people who are at the bargaining table; those who know about the issue in depth or that have substantial capital involved all benefit from the wealth extraction the current international regime provides.
These individuals make very respectable incomes doing very little work living in an area with a rock-bottom cost of living and propagate their status in society by imposing regulations that lock in the need for their services, like local directorship quotas for local companies. An individual can sit on 30~ or so local boards for $20,000 a year each with a PO box for an office. That's a cool half-mil per year to sit on the beach, drink out of a coconut, and read a few pages of board materials a day.
This isn't the case for all companies, but it sure is the case for some.