About Nick Shaxson
US Fortune 500 cos hold $2.4trn offshore, dodging up to $695bn in tax
From Citizens for Tax Justice, a major new report: “A diverse array of companies are using offshore tax havens. . . All told, American Fortune 500 corporations are avoiding up to $695 billion in U.S. federal income taxes by holding $2.4 trillion of “permanently reinvested” profits offshore. In their latest annual financial reports, 27 of these corporations reveal that they have paid
Read the full article…UN asks IMF, World Bank, to study illicit financial flows
Highlighting a powerful new(ish) study: the final report on illicit financial flows and human rights of the UN Independent Expert, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky. It’s well worth reading the whole thing, but here are some of the top lines and just a few of the many important recommendations: Illicit financial flows, including individual tax evasion and multinational tax avoidance, constitute a major
Read the full article…Facebook ‘to pay more UK tax’. Let’s not get carried away
Update: see Prem Sikka’s article “Facebook looks set to pay more UK tax but it might not be as much as you think.” The UK seems to be a bit of a canary in the mine on international corporation tax at the moment. This is because the British public is very, very exercised about these issues. The latest twist is a story,
Read the full article…2016 Honesty Oscars: Stop the Bleeding song wins
The results of the 2016 Honesty Oscars are announced, and the winner is this song from the Stop the Bleeding campaign. Congratulations. TweetShare
Will the US Implement Country by Country Reporting?
The BEPS Monitoring Group, an expert body (backed by TJN and others) that works on international corporate tax issues, has published its comments on draft US Treasury Regulations on Country by Country Reporting (CbCR, for an explanation for newcomers, see here). Given the large number of multinational enterprises (MNEs) headquartered in the US, it is crucial for the US to adopt the scheme, if it
Read the full article…The other four fifths of the corporate tax “incidence” question
We’ve done two blogs in the past week on the fraught question of the ‘incidence’ of the corporate income tax: that is, the question of who ultimately bears the burden for paying the tax. Is it the shareholders of the corporation that gets taxed? Is it the workers? Is it customers? Who is it? The first blog looks at the
Read the full article…US official on the influence of NGOs on taxing multinationals
TweetShare
Tax Justice Network vs. Tim Worstall: a debate on corporate tax
Tim Worstall, a British commentator who has launched a number of vitriolic and personalised public attacks on TJN and TJN staff members in the the past, has been in debate with TJN’s Research Director, Alex Cobham, on the subject of corporate tax. (For a flavour of the extraordinary level of vitriol, see this.) Anyway, here’s the debate. Make your own minds
Read the full article…Should we be giving tax breaks to tobacco companies?
From Citizens for Tax Justice in the U.S., a post that begins by discussing federal tax breaks for manufacturing corporations. And they ask: “Tobacco companies “manufacture” cigarettes—but do Americans, or lawmakers, really think it’s a good idea for the federal government to subsidise this activity? New financial reports from major corporations in this sector show that cigarette makers are enjoying
Read the full article…Offshore Ireland implicated in bank collapse, once again
Update: now on Naked Capitalism (and note the comments underneath.) Update 2, March 1: now with added video at the end: a Live Register report on the IFSC, from 2012. We have written a great deal about the role of Ireland and the Irish Financial Services Centre (IFSC) and its role as an offshore haven, posing risks not just for tax
Read the full article…Belgian tax treaties cost developing countries millions every year
New report 11.11.11: Belgian tax treaties cost developing countries millions every year A guest blog by Jan van de Poel As a consequence of dozens of unbalanced tax treaties, negotiated by the Belgian government, developing countries miss out on at least 35 million Euros on tax revenues each year, a new 11.11.11-report finds. While the stated objective of these treaties is to
Read the full article…Pfizer: tax dodger, price gouger
A new report from Americans for Tax Fairness concludes: “In addition to dodging its fair share of taxes, Pfizer—maker of Celebrex, Lipitor, Lyrica, and Viagra, among many other health-care products—has also been aggressively raising prescription drug prices, thereby straining patients and our health care system and in some cases putting needed medications out of reach. By dodging taxes while boosting prescription drug prices,
Read the full article…Corporate tax: the great incidence hoax
We’ve mentioned the incidence question several times before, but TJN’s Director John Christensen was at a debate in London last night on the future of the corporate income tax, alongside Mike Devereux of the Oxford Centre for Business Taxation; Helen Miller of the Institute for Fiscal Studies; Simon Walker of the Institute of Directors, and Margaret Hodge, chair of the UK All
Read the full article…Quote of the day: South Africa’s Finance Minister
From the 2016 budget speech in South Africa, from Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan: “We will continue to act aggressively against the evasion of tax through transfer pricing abuses, misuse of tax treaties and illegal money flows. Drawing on the work of the OECD, the G20 joint project on base erosion and profit shifting and independent bodies such as the Tax Justice
Read the full article…Which countries have a Land Value Tax?
TJN is a strong supporter of the idea of a Land Value Tax, as part of a comprehensive tax system. It is a kind of wealth tax: a key recommendation in Thomas Piketty’s excellent Capital in the Twenty-First Century, and a long-running recommendation of TJN’s. The LVT, popularised by the 19th Century economist Henry George, building on the work of Adam Smith
Read the full article…
