The Isle of Man has been ranked 17th in the list of the world’s most corrosive tax havens.

We are included among six jurisdictions with the highest ’haven score’ of 100 in the corporate tax haven index published by the Tax Justice Network.

But the island drops to 17th place, behind the UK, Guernsey and Jersey, when it is ranked by its share in global foreign direct investment.

The new index, which will be published every two years, complements TJN’s financial secrecy index, which has been ranking tax havens according to financial secrecy since 2009.

Topping the list is the British Virgin Islands, followed by Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

The Netherlands, Switzerland and Luxembourg come next followed by Jersey in seventh place.

Ireland is ranked 11th, the UK 13th and Guernsey is 15th in the list.

TJN says the UK and a handful of OECD countries are the jurisdictions most responsible for the breakdown of the global corporate tax system - with Britain bearing the lion’s share of responsibility through its network of Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.

Its index scores each country’s tax system based on the degree to which it enables corporate tax avoidance.

Each country’s corporate tax haven score is then combined with their scale of corporate activity. The greater the share of global corporate activity jeopardised by a jurisdiction’s tax system, the higher it ranks on the index.

TJN says the top 10 in the list have triggered a ’race to the bottom’ across the globe as countries desperate to claw back foreign investment engage in the false economy of ’tax competitiveness’ - or what it describes as a ’world tax war’.

Alex Cobham, chief executive at the Tax Justice Network, said: ’The hypocrisy revealed by the corporate tax haven index is sickening.

’A handful of the richest countries have waged a world tax war so corrosive, they’ve broken down the global corporate tax system beyond repair.

’The UK, Netherlands, Switzerland and Luxembourg - the Axis of Avoidance - line their own pockets at the expense of a crucial funding stream for sustainable human progress.’