About Nick Shaxson
Taxing multinationals: a new approach
Our headline is also the title of an important new report by Public Services International, a global trade union federation, looking at the fast-changing international tax system. Co-authored by Public Services International’s Daniel Bertossa and Sol Picciotto, a Tax Justice Network Senior Adviser, it explains in clear and straightforward terms the deep flaws in the principles and practices of the
Read the full article…Historic US vote to tackle shell company secrecy
From the FACT coalition in the United States: With a bipartisan vote of 249 to 173, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill Tuesday night to update federal anti-money laundering laws and end the incorporation of anonymous companies in the U.S. After more than a decade of debate in Washington, Tuesday’s vote in favor of the Corporate Transparency
Read the full article…New website: massive rise in tax injustice in the US
Gabriel Zucman has developed a high profile creating new data on tax systems, tax havens and inequality. To coincide with the release of his new book The Triumph of Injustice: How the rich dodge taxes and how to make them pay, he has launched a new, user-friendly website, Tax Justice Now. It’s focused on the tax system in the United
Read the full article…Tax Havens: Britain’s Second Empire
In August 2012, the UK-based New Left Project published an article entitled “Britain’s Second Empire,” which involved an interview with the London-based academic Ronen Palan (pictured). The idea is that after the collapse of its formal Empire, Britain created a new, more hidden financial “empire” of tax havens around the world, which handled increasing amounts of money from around the
Read the full article…No, corporate tax avoidance is not ‘legal’ – an update
Recently we published a long blog entitled “No, corporate tax avoidance is not ‘legal’” which was republished on the Financial Times’ Alphaville blog, and got a lot of attention in tax circles. There was the usual fuming and fulminating about ‘socialists’ under the beds and the usual evidence-free ‘doesn’t know what he’s talking about’ assertions, along with some more interesting
Read the full article…IMF tackles tax havens
At least, the IMF’s latest edition of Finance & Development is focused on the “hidden corners of the global economy” – which naturally involves tax havens. It carries a feature by TJN contributor Nicholas Shaxson (author of Treasure Islands and the more recent The Finance Curse,) entitled Tackling Tax Havens. Here’s (maybe) the most arresting sentence, in case you didn’t
Read the full article…France gets bullied on digital tax
France and the United States have been at loggerheads over French plans to impose a 3% digital tax on revenues earned on digital services in France, which would hit US multinationals like Google or Facebook. The US had threatened retaliation. Now, it seems US president Donald Trump and French President Macron have reached a deal: “Macron told reporters that companies
Read the full article…Taxing foreign capital as an alternative to tariffs
Michael Pettis, a well known China-watcher and expert on global finance and macroeconomics (who has also apparently been a leading light in Beijing’s punk rock scene), has published a new article on Bloomberg entitled 5 Smart Reasons to Tax Foreign Capital. It’s a welcome antidote to all those who feel that the route to national prosperity is through desperately throwing
Read the full article…How financialisation worsens Britain’s regional imbalances: our submission to parliament
Recently the UK Treasury launched an inquiry into regional imbalances in the UK economy. In short, it was asking about the nature of the economic imbalances in the UK, the problems these imbalances may pose, and what remedies might be available. The Tax Justice Network sent the Treasury a submission, which you can download here. The main purpose of the
Read the full article…Twenty reasons to shrink your financial centre
(Cross-posted with financecurse.net) The Finance Curse is a concept first developed by the Tax Justice Network. It is a relatively simple idea — and also an original and powerful multi-level critique of the modern global economy. The core message is “too much finance can make a country poorer,” and this article explains why this is so, by framing the issue
Read the full article…No, corporate tax avoidance is not ‘legal’
The original version was published at Financial Times Alphaville here. This version was updated on Sept 5th, 2019, responding to media comments. Scroll down to the bottom to see the new material. Update: Taxwatch in the UK has written a useful follow-up article entitled “Is Tax Avoidance legal?,” with the same conslusion, drawing on overlapping but often different arguments. TweetShare
Quote of the day: the Big Four in low income countries
This quote is from an experienced African tax official, recently told to the Tax Justice Network. The interview was given on condition of anonymity. Officials from the African tax authority became aware that the Big Four accounting firms had been telling multinationals operating in the country that the revenue authority was “completely unapproachable.” But when they made contact directly, not
Read the full article…Over a third of world trade happens inside multinational corporations
Updated with new data. Over the years we’ve heard a lot of people saying that over half of world trade across borders takes place inside multinational corporations. The OECD in 2002 said: more than 60% of world trade takes place within multinational enterprises How reliable are these data? There has never been good sourcing on these figures – and it’s
Read the full article…Ten reasons why the Destination Based Cash Flow Tax is a terrible idea
This long blog will be periodically updated, in response to comments. Latest update: March 28, 2019. The international tax system for taxing multinational corporations is coming apart at the seams. We are now entering one of the most significant turning points in world tax history. As the IMF’s Christine Lagarde remarked on March 10, “we need a fundamental rethink on
Read the full article…Tax Inspectors Without Borders – a Tax Justice Network idea bears fruit
The Economist is running an article about a fairly new body called Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB), a programme backed by the OECD and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) to provide tax assistance to hard-pressed revenue authorities in poorer countries, whose underpaid officials struggle to match the awesome legal and accounting firepower of the world’s multinationals. This is a vast issue:
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