About Nick Shaxson
The Offshore Wrapper: a week in tax justice #56
Dial C for Corruption? Authoritarian countries and mobile phone companies present a great opportunity for money laundering and corruption. In developing countries most mobile phone services are bought though pre-paid cards which means companies handle large amounts of cash payments. As we have covered in previous editions of the Wrapper (OW:41), the large amounts of cash flowing though mobile phone
Read the full article…Tax Justice Network – Changing the World
We have just put together a promotional video for TJN, to help explain our role in the fast-growing tax justice debates. We’ll place this video permanently on our home page, below the blogs, and on our Tax Justice TV page. We have also just started soliciting testimonials from various people about TJN’s role, and this morning we received this one, via e-mail. “TJN
Read the full article…New report on abusive tax arrangements hurting Greece
From SOMO in the Netherlands: How Canadian mining company Eldorado Gold destroys the Greek environment and dodges tax through Dutch mailbox companies A new SOMO report reveals that Greece’s economic recovery is being undermined by large-scale tax avoidance – enabled by the Netherlands. At the same time, Greece endures harsh austerity measures imposed by the European Commission, European Central Bank
Read the full article…Do lower tax rates curb tax cheating? Really?
It’s a good question. Now, an Australian story, via The Guardian: “Treasurer Joe Hockey has said Australia is “losing control of our destiny from a taxation perspective” because of “holes” in the tax treatment of multinational corporations, as a parliamentary committee prepares to grill global companies about the tax they pay and former tax officials warn that the tax office has lost
Read the full article…UNCTAD: multinational tax avoidance costs developing countries $100 billion+
The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has just published a major new study on corporate tax in developing countries, which contains a wealth of new information analysis as well as some important headline numbers: notably that developing countries lost around $100 billion per year in revenues due to tax avoidance by multinational enterprises (MNEs), and as much as $300 billion
Read the full article…An African civil society perspective on Financing for Development
From the Uncounted blog, run by TJN’s Director of Research, Alex Cobham The African regional consultation on Financing for Development (FfD) took place at the start of the week (like the European one). The submission from TJN-Africa puts particular emphasis on inequality, including women’s rights, and on global data issues. TweetShare
What is competitiveness? #1 – Robert Reich
From the Fools’ Gold blog, an article that speaks for itself What is Competitiveness? #1 Robert Reich This is the first in an ongoing series of articles we are planning, to explore what competitiveness is, from the perspective of particular public figures or intellectuals. For the first in this series we’ve chosen Robert Reich, a former U.S. Labor Secretary. He’s written an article in
Read the full article…The Tax Justice Network Podcast, March 2015
The Tax Justice Network Podcast, March 2015 In the March 2015 Taxcast: Democracy for sale – how our politics rely heavily on tax haven-friendly donors. Also, we ask: why is HSBC shutting down offshore accounts in Jersey? Are we in the final few years of the corporate income tax? Is Australia’s exempting of big companies from new transparency rules a joke? Plus more scandal
Read the full article…Tax haven Gibraltar sues newspaper for calling it a tax haven
Another story from TJN’s Department of You-Couldn’t-Make-This-Stuff-Up. News is coming out that the government of Gibraltar is planning to sue Spanish newspaper ABC for defamation. Apparently the Gibraltarians take exception to the British Overseas Territory being depicted as a tax haven. Here is the beef: “THE Gibraltar government is suing a Spanish daily national over a front page story which
Read the full article…The UK’s money laundering rules support debanking of poorer countries
By Alex Cobham, TJN’s Director of Research. Originally posted at his blog Uncounted. Poverty – a bad money-laundering risk factor The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has revealed the basis on which it ranks jurisdictions as low or high risk for money laundering – and it seems inevitable that it will support debanking of poorer countries. TweetShare
New Report: Ten Reasons to Defend the Corporate Income Tax.
UPDATES 2018 – Tax incentives in mining: minimising risks to revenue, OECD/Intergovernmental forum on mining, minerals, metals, and sustainable development. “Tax incentives are costly, leading many countries to forgo vital revenues in exchange for often illusive benefits. . . there is little evidence that tax incentives are effective at attracting mining investment in developing countries.” March 2017 – Tax Spillovers: a
Read the full article…Six questions about HSBC and the Jersey connection
From the BBC in Jersey: “HSBC is closing all accounts in Jersey for customers living in the UK, as part of industry-wide efforts to check identity and address details, to ensure off-shore accounts aren’t being used to hide money. Jersey’s Chief Minister Ian Gorst insists that banks have to comply with legislation.” So few words, so much to say about them.
Read the full article…New study outlines trillions handed out in U.S. corporate welfare bonanza
From Good Jobs First in the U.S., a new study looking at the many and varied grants, tax credits and subsidies harvested by large companies. (Also see our Taxcast interview of Greg Leroy, along with an interview with Kevin Farnsworth, who has done similar work on corporate welfare for the UK.) The press release for the new report, entitled Uncle
Read the full article…Small countries, big banks: is Andorra the new Cyprus?
Our quote of the day comes from the introductory paragraph of a Reuters story: “With Andorra now added to the list, how many more examples do we need to see the folly of combining a small country with a large banking system?” That’s our quote of the day. The lead angle of the story is one of financial stability: it asks
Read the full article…Where did Zimbabwe’s diamond revenues go?
From Tax Justice Network Africa, via its Afritax feed, a video showing a Zimbabwean member of parliament, James Maridadi, taking the Minister of Finance to task on revenue from Marange Diamonds. The brief exchange is worth watching, not least for the Minister’s evasive manoeuvres. But it’s mostly an excuse for us to draw readers’ attention to an older, fantastic video by Al-Jazeera, who
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