About Alex Cobham
Tax Justice Network reaction to #FinCENFiles leaks
Some of these people in those crisp white shirts in their sharp suits are feeding off the tragedy of people dying all over the world ~ Martin Woods, a former suspicious transactions investigator for Wachovia, quoted by BuzzFeed. Alex Cobham, chief executive at Tax Justice Network, said: “The FinCENFiles leak exposes two major flaws in the global regime to combat
Read the full article…Tax justice at UN75
The UN75 Global Governance Forum brought together “thousands of leaders worldwide from governments, global civil society, and the technology, business, and philanthropic communities to foster new kinds of innovative partnerships with the United Nations system to better address global peace and security, sustainable development, human rights, and humanitarian action, and climate governance challenges.” I was honoured to present the first
Read the full article…A UN Tax Convention – then a U-turn
Last night, the United Nations published a document with a ground-breaking tax justice recommendation for the global meeting of ministers of finance which takes place this Tuesday 8 September. But just a few hours later, the document was replaced with another, claiming to be the ‘advance unformatted version’. This document was identical in most respects, except for a lack of
Read the full article…UN FACTI Panel envisages major global reforms
The UN high-level panel on Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (FACTI) is moving fast. Following its launch earlier this year, the Panel has consulted widely with member states, civil society and experts from all areas of its broad mandate, the global architecture within which illicit financial flows take place. Now FACTI has published a series of background papers laying out
Read the full article…A response to the European court’s bad Apple ruling
Today’s Apple decision confirms that the European Union’s rules against state aid are not up to the job of preventing EU member states operating as tax havens. Powerful tax justice reforms are needed, rather than broader application of state aid rules. Neither the EU nor any other countries will be able to raise the revenues needed to invest in health
Read the full article…It’s got to be automatic: Trillions of dollars offshore revealed by Tax Justice Network policy success
This is a moment, in these strange times, to celebrate an ongoing success in the history of the tax justice movement. Automatic, multilateral exchange of information on financial accounts is the A of our ABC of tax transparency. It has been a campaign aim since our inception in the early 2000s, as the key to ending bank secrecy. It is
Read the full article…US blows up global project to tax multinational corporations. What now?
“(Other nations) had all come together” via the OECD to “screw America and that’s just not something we’re ever going to be a part of”. ~ US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer addressing Congress, 17 June 2020, per Sydney Morning Herald. Boom. The US has blown up ‘BEPS 2.0’, the OECD’s tax reform process with the Financial Times reporting that US
Read the full article…Tax, reparations and ‘Plan B’ for the UK’s tax haven web
The killing of George Floyd by US police in Minnesota, on 25 May 2020, has sparked a public response both more powerful and more international than almost any of the previous cases in a very long line – including Breonna Taylor in Kentucky, 13 March 2020. The demands for justice extend far beyond the specifics of the individuals involved, and
Read the full article…Investors demand OECD tax transparency
Investors responsible for trillions of dollars of assets have called on the OECD to ensure that the country by country reporting of multinational companies is made public. With leading experts, standard setters and civil society groups fully in agreement, the only remaining opposition to this most basic transparency measure comes from multinationals and industry groups that benefit from opacity that
Read the full article…A Pyrrhic victory for the OECD?
Image credit: “Πύρρος της Ηπείρου, Άρτα” by Dimitris Graffin is licensed under CC BY 2.0 The OECD secretariat has announced that it obtained agreement from the Inclusive Framework to press ahead with its own proposals, following US-French agreement of sorts – but at what price for the organisation’s legitimacy, and the future of international tax rules? I’ll discuss three scenarios, the implications of the
Read the full article…Global taxing rights: ‘The genie is out of the bottle’
The OECD process to reform the international tax rules for multinationals is at a critical point. The secretariat’s proposals have drawn widespread criticism, not least for sidelining the perspectives of non-OECD countries; and the US has blown up the agreement with France that underpinned the secretariat’s approach, threatening instead to impose trade sanctions. But the dramatic policy shift to taxing
Read the full article…Will the OECD tax reforms collapse? Three scenarios
The OECD’s process for reform of international tax rules has just been torpedoed by the United States. As the US announced 100% tariffs on a range of goods, in response to the French digital services tax, finance minister Bruno Le Maire said on Monday that, “having demanded an international solution from the OECD, it [Washington] now isn’t sure it wants
Read the full article…A historic day for unitary taxation
Today sees the crystallisation of two potentially pivotal moments in the development of international tax rules towards the Tax Justice Network’s long-favoured approach: unitary taxation. In Paris, the OECD is hosting a public consultation on the biggest reform to the taxation of multinational companies in almost a century – and there is a growing demand for a comprehensive shift to
Read the full article…#MauritiusLeaks primer: What to know about corporate tax haven Mauritius
The ICIJ’s MauritiusLeaks has produced a series of revelations about the behaviour of international investors using the law firm Conyers Dill & Pearman in Mauritius, typically to hold their assets in other countries across Africa. But why Mauritius? Here we set out the key features of this small island in the Indian Ocean. 1. Mauritius is a leading corporate tax
Read the full article…Research fellow in financial secrecy, for new research grant
We’re delighted to announce the start of a ‘Does Transparency bring Cleanliness? Offshore Financial Secrecy Reform and Corruption Controlnew’, a Global Integrity-DFID Anti-Corruption Evidence (GI-DFID-ACE) research project with Dr Daniel Haberly of the University of Sussex. And that means we’re looking for a star research fellow, with an interest in the issues explored by the Financial Secrecy Index, and in the
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