About Nick Shaxson
Luxembourg: the campaign on corporate tax has only just begun
From Eurodad: a wonderful sign that people are starting to gear up to challenge the many corporate tax abuses run out of secrecy jurisdictions like the European Dodgy Duchy of Luxembourg. TweetShare
OECD country-by-country reporting: Strangled at birth
Sigh. Country-by-country reporting, an idea first mooted and pushed by Richard Murphy for TJN – is making slow but steady headway, in various fora internationally. The OECD, which only relatively rarely fails to disappoint, has been weighing in on this weighty affair. We now report on the latest news from this part of the front line. From Alex Cobham’s blog, Uncounted: TweetShare
TJN in The Economist: on the precious corporate income tax
Recently, we wrote an article welcoming a major intervention by The Economist magazine, which was arguing that rules allowing people and corporations to set interest payments against their tax bills is a historical anachronism whose time has now gone. TweetShare
Australia may try to exempt wealthy via scaremongering
The Sydney News reports: “The Australian government has produced draft legislation to classify the financial accounts of private wealthy families, in order to deter kidnappers.” and there’s more, summed up by The Guardian: TweetShare
Did KPMG spot anything amiss at FIFA?
From Francine McKenna: “Of all the individuals and firms tied up in the scandal over bribery and corruption at FIFA, scrutiny has so far largely escaped KPMG, the soccer association’s external auditor.” That’s the summary, and our quote of the day. The article continues: TweetShare
International commission calls for corporate tax reform
When we look back, might today be the day that momentum swung decisively against current international tax rules? An independent commission made up of leading international economists, development thinkers and tax experts (see the graphic) has called for a radical overhaul of international corporate tax rules. There are six main recommendations, set out below. Taken together, it’s possible that they
Read the full article…Tax Justice Research Bulletin 1(5)
May 2015. Welcome to the fifth Tax Justice Research Bulletin, a monthly series dedicated to tracking the latest developments in policy-relevant research on national and international taxation. This issue looks at a fascinating thesis on the different people and organisations that influence the OECD revision of corporate tax rules; and a new analysis from the IMF on the scale of
Read the full article…Quote of the day – tax incentives as official tax evasion
This headline may seem odd. Conventionally tax evasion involves cutting taxes by breaking laws; using tax incentives is a different creature altogether: it involves cutting taxes by using the law. But this useful new report from the European parliament contains a twist on the conventional wisdom: TweetShare
World No Tobacco Day: Marching to Big Tobacco’s tune?
Cross-posted with the Uncounted blog, by TJN’s research director Alex Cobham. World No Tobacco day was on Sunday (yesterday.) World No Tobacco Day: Marching to Big Tobacco’s tune? Has World No Tobacco Day 2015 – this Sunday – been manipulated by Big Tobacco’s lobbying agenda? Where the tobacco lobby is concerned, it would be naive to think there’s smoke without fire. TweetShare
The other FIFA scandal: poor countries and the tax-free bubble
We’ve just written about the role of Goldman Sachs in distorting U.S. sports and harming smaller players via tax cheating. Well, here is yet another thing to make you choke on your cornflakes: FIFA hurting poor countries though what we’d describe as aggressive, idiosyncratic tax cheating. TweetShare
How Goldman Sachs distorts sports via tax cheating
As if the FIFA scandal weren’t enough to be choking on. Quoted in the LA Times, an article about Goldman Sachs’ role in financing large sports stadium: “Goldman Sachs’ job is to use, if not disguise, every public funding tax shelter and loophole.” Here is the (sour) juice of this particular story, which mostly concerns the San Diego Chargers: TweetShare
Global Week of Action for #TaxJustice, June 16-23, 2015.
The Global Week of Action for #TaxJustice, which will take place in June 16-23, 2015, aims to encourage and cross-promote diverse activities that are initiated across our tax justice communities, to increase public pressure on governments across the world. Members and allies of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice (GATJ), a sister organisation of ours (which originally emerged from TJN and is now a
Read the full article…Stiglitz to tax haven UK: you are aiding and abetting theft
Our quote of the day, from Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, commenting in the wake of the UK election: “Some of these people are just using your rule of law to protect money they have stolen in other countries . . . From a global point of view, you are aiding and abetting theft.” TweetShare
Amazon to curb Luxembourg tax schemes: a sign of things to come?
Last Saturday The Guardian broke a story about the U.S. multinational Amazon: “From the start of this month the online retailer has started booking its sales through the UK. . . The group made $8.3bn (£5.3bn) of worldwide sales from British online shoppers but for 11 years all these internet transactions have been booked in Luxembourg.” TweetShare
Justice, interrupted: will bankers get off the hook ever more lightly?
Two Economist blogs in a row: this time we’ve a fine excuse because their image comes from our TJN Senior Adviser, Jim Henry, who presented this data at the TJN-supported Illicit Financial Journalism Programme in London last week, and gave a preview last February in our Taxcast (see below): “just what does a bank have to do to lose its licence?”.
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