About John Christensen
Tax avoidance by corporations is out of control; the UN must step in
Earlier this summer we blogged about how the powerful OECD bullied their way at the Addis Ababa financing for development summit to block developing country requests for a proper inter-governmental body to establish the groundrules for international tax cooperation. Now, writing in The Guardian, José Antonio Ocampo and Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona comment on how the rich and powerful nations raged
Read the full article…Just how do you change the world?
The Greatest Invention: Tax and the Campaign for a Just Society Foreword by John Christensen Experts wanted for hazardous mission. Small wages, fierce resistance, many years in the wilderness, constant pressure. November 10, 2003 Jeremy Corbyn’s victory in the Labour leadership elections in the UK and Bernie Sanders’ barn-storming campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in the U.S. have brought
Read the full article…Congratulations to Professor Richard Murphy
TJN is delighted to hear that Richard Murphy, a long-standing senior adviser who has given enormous amounts of time to the tax justice movement since its founding in 2003, has been appointed as Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at the Department of International Politics at City University, London. Richard will be teaching a course on the economics of
Read the full article…The Offshore Wrapper: a week in tax justice #69
Washington DC defines tax havens, then taxes them The city of Washington DC has become the latest US government to take on tax havens. The city will now directly tax the income of companies made in a number of tax havens. The legislation works by requiring companies that do business in the District to report how much income they make
Read the full article…Civil society calls on G20 finance ministers to end fossil fuel subsidies
G20 finance ministers will be meeting in Ankara, Turkey, on 4th and 5th September 2015, under the Turkish G20 presidency. In a letter to finance ministers, TJN and over sixty other civil society organisations call upon them to meet their commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and support measures that will promote a
Read the full article…Jersey court may be ready to consider tax matters in future trust rulings
A recent judgement on an application to rectify a Jersey trust suggests that the Royal Court of Jersey may in future take account of whether a trust is being used for tax avoidance. Remarks by the island’s Bailiff (high court judge) William Bailhache are being interpreted by some Jersey lawyers as an indication that the Court might take the tax
Read the full article…New publication: The Greatest Invention – Tax and the Campaign for a Just Society
Available Worldwide, September 24, 2015 The Greatest Invention: Tax and the Campaign for a Just Society TweetShare
UK Prime Minister Cameron told: stop Jersey-registered shell company suing Romania in ‘corporate court’
A letter (see below) to the UK prime minister signed by TJN and other global justice campaign organisations, calls on David Cameron to stop a Canadian mining company using a Jersey ‘subsidiary’ to sue Romania for halting toxic gold mine, and warns that such cases will balloon under the proposed TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. TweetShare
Is it time to assess the financial secrecy of the Vatican?
The Vatican-based Istituto per le Opere di Religione (the Institute for Religious Works or IOR, a.k.a. the Vatican Bank) probably falls into the category of the world’s most controversial bank. Now, according to this long read article in today’s Guardian, the bank’s unaccountable bureaucracy and self-serving networks who have operated with impunity for decades, faces a vigourous shakedown led by
Read the full article…The Heavens: a photographic exploration of tax havens
In his essay on what he termed ‘Conspicuous Leisure’, economist Thorstein Veblen observed that “In order to gain and hold the esteem of men it is not sufficient merely to possess wealth or power. The wealth or power must be put to evidence, for esteem is only awarded on evidence. And not only does the evidence of wealth serve to
Read the full article…Who are the real “marauders”?
ma+raud verb. to search (a place) for plunder On Monday this week the Guardian newspaper splashed a headline across its frontpage about a comment from UK minister of foreign affairs Philip Hammond accusing “marauding migrants” of threatening the standard of living of Europeans. TweetShare
Joseph Stiglitz: Why America (and Britain come to that) are on the wrong side of history
Influential economist Joseph Stiglitz has published an article in the Guardian newspaper in which he argues that the USA (and we would add the UK and other major OECD countries) is systematically blocking attempts by other countries to strengthen global governance. TweetShare
The power of corporate propaganda: review of ‘The Mythology of Business’
Why did the vibrant social democratic traditions of Europe and North America collapse so swiftly in the face of the pervasive propaganda of the neoliberal project? TweetShare
Women’s Working Group reaction to the Addis Ababa finance for development outcomes
From the Women’s Working Group on Financing for Development Reaction to the Outcome Document of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development: Addis Ababa Action Agenda July 2015 Download PDF The Women’s Working Group on Financing for Development (WWG on FfD) expresses its strong disappointment with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda adopted at the conclusion of the Third Financing
Read the full article…No country for dirty money: behind Britain’s populist promise on corruption
This guest blog by Jörg Wiegratz was originally published by The Conversation, and is re-published here with the author’s permission The contemporary global economy is characterised by high levels of corruption and crime. Economic chicanery and fraud are rife in many business sectors TweetShare
