About Nick Shaxson
Tax haven USA: new Bloomberg story adds urgency to reform needs
Bloomberg is running a story entitled The World’s Favorite New Tax Haven Is the United States, which closely follows the line that TJN has been taking, particularly since our big Loophole USA blog a year ago, and our subsequent USA Report for the Financial Secrecy Index last October. Expanding on a quote we used in our USA report and in our more
Read the full article…The Offshore Wrapper – a week in tax justice #72
Colombian energy moves offshore. Colombian power generation firm Isagen has been sold to Brookfield for $2bn. Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners L.P. describes itself as a “Bermuda based limited partnership”. The deal was hugely controversial, with people taking to the streets after it was announced in protest. Isagen is a profitable company and the campaign group Justicia Tributaria had previously managed obtain
Read the full article…Google’s taxes and the economic illiteracy of the Mayor of London
No, not the Lord Mayor of London, but the Mayor of London, a certain Boris Johnson, who’s frequently tipped to be Britain’s next Prime Minister. Given that Britain is arguably the most important player in the global offshore system, this man’s opinions deserve close scrutiny. The topic at hand is Google’s tax affairs in the UK, and the UK government’s triumphant
Read the full article…Europe must impose withholding taxes on payments, to target U.S. and other tax havens
Press Release For immediate release. Jan 21, 2016 Europe must impose withholding taxes on payments, to target U.S. and other tax havens Global transparency scheme in peril: strong action now needed The Tax Justice Network is calling for the European Union to follow the United States in imposing a withholding tax against jurisdictions that do not meet new standards of
Read the full article…Review: new book on Capital Flight from Africa
Over at Uncounted, Alex Cobham (our Research Director) has written a review of a new tome for tax justice bookshelves: Capital flight from Africa: Causes, effects and policy issues, Ibi Ajayi & Léonce Ndikumana (eds.), 2015, Oxford University Press. His review begins: “This new volume from the AERC (African Economic Research Consortium) is a very welcome milestone in scholarship on the complex and contested
Read the full article…TJN-backed tax haven book a bestseller in Germany
We are delighted to note that Markus Meinzer’s book Steueroase Deutschland (Tax Haven Germany) is selling like hot kuchen in Germany: currently ranked at Number 1 in business books, and an even more remarkable Number 24 in all books – going head to head with the likes of “Harry Potter und der Gefangene von Askaban;” “Jamies 15-Minuten-Küche: Blitzschnell, gesund und superlecker,” and “Fifty Shades
Read the full article…Some (minor) useful developments in the United States
We have recently been extremely exercised about Tax Haven USA, which has been busy (and rightly so) protecting itself from offshore tax havens, while at the same time becoming more of a tax haven for foreigners. But we mustn’t forget that the United States isn’t a monolith: it’s a battleground between offshore cheerleaders (led by Wall Street), and reformers who
Read the full article…New paper: tax treaties a ‘poisoned chalice’ for developing countries
Update, Jan 20: this blog has now been adapted and expanded in a post on Naked Capitalism. In 2013 we published an article entitled Lee Sheppard: Don’t sign OECD model tax treaties! which looked at a presentation by one of the U.S.’ top experts in international tax. Her fiery presentation contains gems such as: “The treaties protect multinationals primarily. That’s all they were ever
Read the full article…Quote of the day: White House slaps down foolish ‘innovation box’
Last October we published an article entitled The UK’s “Patent Box” – nasty, disingenuous and hypocritical tax law (via a longer piece we wrote on Naked Capitalism, entitled The “Patent Box” – Proof That the UK is a Rogue State in Corporate Tax.) This is about providing tax breaks for multinationals supposedly to foster innovation, but which in reality are a disaster area from pretty
Read the full article…Tax justice and human rights: an issue that’s been hiding in plain sight
A new paper by Advocate Paul R Beckett in the Isle of Man is adding to the small but fast-growing body of work on Tax Justice and Human Rights. Its crowd-thrilling title is The Representative Impact of the Isle of Man as a Low Tax Area on the International Human Rights Continuum from a Fiscal and Structural Perspective, and its preamble creates a
Read the full article…The secret EU Tax “Code” that needs to be cracked open
Guest Blog: The secret EU Tax “Code” that needs to be cracked open A guest blog by Tove Maria Ryding, Eurodad Yesterday Fabio De Masi, a German member of the European Parliament, filed a lawsuit against the European Commission after being denied the right to see the minutes from meetings in the Code of Conduct group on Business Taxation. Ever since the famous LuxLeaks tax
Read the full article…Tax Justice Lëtzebuerg (Luxembourg) launched
Via email, we just received this: “This Wednesday « Collectif Tax Justice Lëtzebuerg » went public. Initiated following the Luxleaks revelations, this collective brings together about thirty citizens calling for a public debate which questions the usefulness, the legitimacy and the merits of the abusive exploitation of aggressive tax planning in Luxembourg.” This is not an official TJN initiative, though it is part of the broader
Read the full article…New petition: public country by country reporting now
From War on Want and EPSU, a new petition: “We call on the economics and finance ministers of the European Union to crack down on corporate tax dodging; multinational companies must be required to publish key information about where they are doing business, earning their profits and paying their taxes [country-by-country reporting]. This information must be made available to the
Read the full article…New research: ‘competing’ aggressively on tax reduces growth
Cross-posted with Fools’ Gold, and now on Naked Capitalism. This article will be permanently stored on a section of the site called The Harms. Recently we published an article entitled New studies: do ‘competitive’ corporate tax cuts boost growth? – to which the answer was a qualified ‘no.’ Well, now we are delighted to host a guest blog by Prof. Nikolay Anguelov of the Department of Public
Read the full article…The ironic pillage of tax haven Puerto Rico by offshore hedge funds
Puerto Rico is a peculiar historical relic, whose relationship with the United States has strong echoes of the half-in-half-out relationships that the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies enjoy with the mother country, the United Kingdom. This halfway-house link, which provides solid constitutional and legal bedrock for financial investors while allowing all sorts of tricksy carve-outs from the the mother country’s laws and
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