The BEPS Monitoring Group Submission to the OECD on the Digital Economy Rudolf Elmer's open letter to Mr. Martin Graf, Swiss Government Councillor See also our recent blog: Show trial of Swiss whistleblower Elmer now in 9th year, and Julius Baer to remain a boutique despite dramatic size … [Read more...]
Archives for 2014
Links Apr 11
Country-by-Country Template Won't Require Entity-by-Entity Financial Details, Andrus, Head of OECD's Transfer Pricing Unit Says Bloomberg BNA See recent TJN blog Submission to OECD on transfer pricing and developing countries … [Read more...]
On Piketty, mathematical silliness, inherited wealth and mysterious entities
From the book everyone's talking about, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century, a review by Paul Krugman in the New York Review of Books: "Why does inherited wealth play as small a part in today’s public discourse as it does? Piketty suggests that the very size of inherited fortunes in a way … [Read more...]
Links Apr 10
Argentina tax chief Ricardo Etchegaray met with Swiss Ambassador La Nacion (In Spanish) Hat tip: Jorge Gaggero - the "tax cosmetics" continue. See also recent Guest blog: Should Argentina sign a tax treaty with Switzerland? … [Read more...]
Links Apr 9
UK demands exemption from EU trust registry plan STEP The UK government has confirmed that it will oppose clauses in the EU's Fourth Money Laundering Directive that would force all trusts to identify their beneficiaries in publicly accessible registries. … [Read more...]
Links Apr 8
Getting the rules right - Interview with John Christensen, executive director, Tax Justice Network Cayman Financial Review … [Read more...]
Quote of the day: offshore London
From Britain's Telegraph newspaper, an article entitled Cool London is dead, and the rich kids are to blame: "Tax empty houses? Why, no. We wouldn’t want to upset some ex-KGB thug who looted the Kazakh treasury in the mid 1990s. We wouldn’t want to annoy a banker who “honestly” didn’t know he … [Read more...]
Submission to OECD on transfer pricing and developing countries
The BEPS Monitoring Group, which TJN took the lead in establishing last year in the wake of the OECD's ground-breaking initiative, has just published this report: BMG Submission to OECD on Transfer Pricing Comparability Data and Developing Countries. This report responds to the OECD Report on … [Read more...]
The Offshore Wrapper: A week in tax justice
The Offshore Wrapper is written by George Turner Elephant in the room The Africa-EU Summit took place this weekend. The high-level event saw the heads of state and government from Africa and the EU discussing “investing in people, prosperity and peace”. … [Read more...]
Links Apr 3
Illicit capital flows are the elephant in the EU-Africa summit room EurActiv More Countries Agree to Help U.S. Crack Down on Tax Dodgers The Wall Street Journal See also: US Prepares To Enforce 45 FATCA Pacts Tax-News, U.S. gives foreign banks more time on anti-tax dodge law Reuters, and Leaked … [Read more...]
European Investment Bank exposes “hypocritical nature of western financial institutions”
The Guardian has published an article, picked up by media across the world, about the NGO follow-up to revelations in 2011 that the European Investment Bank had lent money to the Zambian firm Mopani Copper Mines (a.k.a. Glencore) which avoided paying tens of millions of dollars in local tax. At … [Read more...]
Links Apr 2
Cayman Islands’ government terminates Lord Blencathra’s lobbying contract The Bureau of Investigative Journalism See also: Lobbying row: Cayman Islands cut ties with Tory peer Lord Blencathra by mutual consent after revelations by The Independent … [Read more...]
Reports: the sorry state of U.S. tax dodging multinationals
Two major reports are worth highlighting here. First, and most recently, from the U.S. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (via Senator Carl Levin), a report on tax avoidance by U.S. multinational Caterpillar: "Caterpillar Inc., an American manufacturing icon, used a wholly owned Swiss … [Read more...]
Swiss secrecy allies falling by the wayside
Swissinfo is running a long article today which begins like this: "The decision by Luxembourg and Austria to automatically exchange tax data with other European Union countries has isolated Switzerland in the global crusade against banking secrecy, a Tax Justice Network (TJN) expert tells … [Read more...]
The Cost of Tax Abuse, 2011
A briefing paper on the cost of tax evasion worldwide, 2011. Cost of Tax Abuse TJN 2011 Highlights: Total tax evasion in excess of US$3.1 trillion, or 5.1% of global GDP, is due to activity in the shadow economy. Only a minority part of this is due to tax havens. Total healthcare … [Read more...]
