Secret Offshore Deals Deprive Africa of Billions in Natural Resource Dollars ICIJ "The Panama Papers show politicians and mining, oil and gas interests benefit from secrecy and dubious multimillion dollar transfers" Staunching tax "haemorrhage" from poorest countries United Nations Radio See … [Read more...]
Archives for 2016
Our Spanish language tax justice podcast is out! ¡Salió nuestro podcast en castellano!
In this month's Spanish language podcast presented by Marcelo Justo and Marta Nunez: (abajo en castellano) - we go to Colombia, where tax evasion isn't a crime - the magical realism of tax havens: how the multinational company Fresh Del Monte exports pineapple from Costa Rica from... the Cayman … [Read more...]
Advocacy tools on tax policy and international cooperation for human rights
Our friends at Righting Finance have released their fourth in a series of advocacy tools on tax policy and international cooperation for human rights. The aim of these advocacy tools is to assist education and dissemination of the standards on tax policy and human rights contained in a report … [Read more...]
The G20 and OECD tax haven blacklist proposals risk becoming another whitewash
Press Release: For immediate release, July 22, 2016 The G20 and OECD tax haven blacklist proposals risk becoming another whitewash This weekend G20 Finance Ministers from the G20 countries will meet in China. One of the items on their agenda will be to agree the criteria for identifying … [Read more...]
Our July 2016 Tax Justice Network Podcast is out
In the July 2016 Taxcast: 'Hello. This is John Doe. Interested in data? I'm happy to share.' We talk to the two journalists who got the Panama Papers scoop, Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier who've written a book about their experience. Plus: what does Brexit mean for tax justice? We … [Read more...]
Will the OECD tax haven blacklist be another whitewash?
Finance Ministers from the G20 countries meet in China on July 23-24 - this weekend. Amid sessions that will focus heavily on Brexit-related issues, there will be an important tax component. At their previous meeting they mandated the OECD to "establish objective criteria . . . to identify … [Read more...]
Guest blog: involve developing countries more in international tax co-operation
After Panama: developing countries need to be involved more closely in international co-operation on tax issues A guest blog by Christian von Haldenwang, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) Bonn, July 4, 2016 - Two major mechanisms squeeze the tax … [Read more...]
Some countries “lose” 2/3 of exports to misinvoicing
From UNCTAD, the UN Conference on Trade and Development, via email: "Some commodity dependent developing countries are losing as much as 67% of their exports worth billions of dollars to trade misinvoicing, according to a fresh study by UNCTAD, which for the first time analyses this issue for … [Read more...]
Links Jul 14
African MPs support push against illicit financial flows Tax Justice Network - Africa Illicit financial inflows and low tax revenue bedevil Africa’s development BDlive New Research Shows Transparency Does Not Negatively Affect Business Competitiveness Transparency International … [Read more...]
New questions over Juncker’s role in Amazon Luxembourg affair
Jean-Claude, Juncker, the President of the European Commission, has long tried to distance himself from his role as one of the key architects of Luxembourg's crime-fueled tax haven factory. An excellent new investigation by Newsweek now reminds us of his efforts to display whiter-than-white … [Read more...]
New tax justice platform in Spain
From the Global Alliance for Tax Justice, on June 28: "On June 28th , Madrid saw the presentation ceremony of the Spanish Plataforma por la Justicia Fiscal (Platform for Tax Justice),an alliance of public organizations, trade unions, social movements, NGOs and others society civil groups. The … [Read more...]
Links Jul 12
Asian Development Bank Updates Policy In Wake Of Global Tax Developments Uganda: Free Zones Authority to Push for Tax Incentives allAfrica / The Observer (Kampala) See also: Visualising Uganda’s (and others’) tax treaties Martin Hearson's Blog, and our recent blog: Quote of the day – tax … [Read more...]
Luxembourg backing down on supporting tax haven USA
A month ago we wrote an article entitled Now Luxembourg, Switzerland are working to bolster Tax Haven USA. This concerns a global scheme to share banking information, the OECD-led Common Reporting Standard, (CRS, which starts up next year and complements separate schemes and campaigns to see public … [Read more...]
Top tax expert: Big 4 “accountants of fortune” must be broken up
In March The Economist magazine rang alarm bells (again) about a rise in concentrated market power: a problem where the biggest firms get ever bigger and more like monopolies, making it easy to extract wealth from the rest of us (as opposed to creating wealth.) This, in turn fosters steeper … [Read more...]
Links Jul 7
Revenue Mobilization in the Developing World: Changes, Challenges and Chances Review of International Political Economy Swiss banking sector seeks to enlist Britain for EU negotiations Reuters France, Luxembourg roll out red carpet for post-Brexit business Yahoo News Panama Papers: the … [Read more...]
