About John Christensen
Coal subsidies reveal G20’s failure to tackle climate emergency
Ten years ago the G20 countries committed to taking the global lead in combatting climate change. However, a new report tracking government subsidies to the fossil fuel industries reveals that despite the promises made in 2009, major G20 countries, including Japan which hosts the 2019 G20 meeting starting this coming Friday, continue to subsidise production and consumption of fossil fuels.
Read the full article…FT letter: tax reform is needed, but not the destination-based cash flow tax
The Financial Times has published a letter from a wide range of tax justice specialists (including this blogger) commenting on a proposal from Martin Wolf that the corporate income tax (CIT) be replaced by an entirely different tax called the destination-based cash flow tax. In response we argue that the DBCFT does not provide an answer to the problems confronting
Read the full article…‘The Magic Money Tree:’ From Modern Monetary Theory to Modern Tax Theory
by John Christensen and Nicholas Shaxson Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has gained prominence since the global financial crisis. The rising star US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said recently we should be “open” to its ideas, and some mainstream economists have given it a (qualified) endorsement. For many, it offers a powerful critique of the damaging austerity policies that were implemented in
Read the full article…When will the British government impose public registries on its tax havens?
UPDATED Not so long ago Lee Sheppard, one of the US’s top experts in international tax, gave a pithy and accurate explanation of why powerful countries don’t just close down the tax havens that are undermining their tax and criminal justice and regulatory systems. We don’t shut [these financial whorehouses] down, because the town fathers are in there with their pants
Read the full article…Yes, Britain is closing its tax havens. But let’s not forget it created them in the first place
This post is jointly authored by Anthea Lawson and John Christensen Tax justice campaigners celebrated this week as a nifty cross-party move from British Members of Parliament Margaret Hodge and Andrew Mitchell forced the UK’s Overseas Territories – many of them in the Caribbean – to stop hiding the owners of companies they incorporate. TweetShare
Seventy-seven nation industrial reserve army
We’re sharing in full an article published this month here from one of the Tax Justice Network’s Senior Advisers, Tax Barrister David Quentin. TweetShare
Vive la revolutión… fiscal! Guest blog
Miguel Urbán Crespo, Member of the European Parliament, PODEMOS has produced this guest blog, translated by Luke Stobard which we’re pleased to share: In his famous work ‘The Ancien Régime and the Revolution’ Alexis Tocqueville held that the French revolution did not really begin in 1789 but two years earlier when the aristocracy refused to pay taxes in the “revolt
Read the full article…The Finance Curse research agenda: what we learned
This blog was first published on 27th November 2017 on the SPERI political economy blog. We have republished it with the kind permission of the author, Andrew Baker, Faculty Professorial Fellow, SPERI who discusses the key points from the recent workshop with the Tax Justice Network: Earlier this month scholars from seven countries and seven disciplines, representatives from four NGOs,
Read the full article…The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire – released for home viewing
from hushhushvideo PRO on November 23, 2017 Watch trailer Genres: Documentary Duration: 1 hour 18 minutes Subtitles: 7 languages + Show Availability: Worldwide TJN’s John Christensen and film director Michael Oswald (97% Owned, Princes of the Yen) co-produced this 78 minute feature documentary about how Britain transformed from a colonial power to a global financial power. Following its successful premiere
Read the full article…Her Majesty the Queen of Offshore
It should come as no surprise that Her Majesty the Queen uses offshore tax havens as part of her wealth management strategy. The Queen is, after all, the head of state of the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, the Channel Islands, and Bermuda where the law firm Applebys was originally based, and others, which makes her the Queen of
Read the full article…Portrait of a tax haven: Jersey
The next in our series of articles taking a deep dive into some of the world’s tax havens ahead of the publication of our next installment of the Financial Secrecy Index. Today, we are publishing an article setting out the history and development of Jersey as a financial center. TweetShare
Result: European Commission to investigate UK tax treatment of MNCs
On 23rd January 2016, the then Chancellor of the UK Exchequer (finance minister) George Osborne announced (via twitter) that he had negotiated a tax settlement with Google. On examination we decided that this deal was shockingly poor value for UK taxpayers and, worse, almost certainly contravened European Union rules on illicit state aid. On 28th January 2016 we wrote (see
Read the full article…The story of a tax haven: Cyprus
As we work towards the publication of the next Financial Secrecy Index, today we are publishing a guest post from Peter Ringstad from TJN Norway on the history of Cyprus as a tax haven. The FSI includes with it a number of narrative reports on the history and development of a range of financial centres. If you have any
Read the full article…Our June 2017 Spanish language Podcast: Justicia ImPositiva, nuestro podcast de junio 2017
Welcome to this month’s latest podcast and radio programme in Spanish with Marcelo Justo and Marta Nuñez, downloaded and broadcast on radio networks across Latin America and Spain. ¡Bienvenidos y bienvenidas a nuestro podcast y programa radiofónica! (abajo en castellano). TweetShare
