About Nick Shaxson
Pulling the plug: how to stop corporate tax dodging in Europe and beyond
From Oxfam, a new report whose headline we’ve copied. As the introduction notes: “Making tax fair is one of the key solutions if we want to tackle the growing problem of inequality. Data from 40 countries shows the potential of well-designed, redistributive taxation and corresponding investment by governments to reduce income inequality driven by market conditions. Finland and Austria, for
Read the full article…In the next taxcast: democracy for sale, via tax havens
Another day, another political party funding scandal. This time it’s (again!) the UK, and its third largest party the Liberal Democrats. We will start with a quote. “Tax-haven lobbyists and beneficiaries have captured and corrupted our party political fundraising.” That’s not us saying it: it’s Donnachadh McCarthy, former Liberal Democrat Deputy Chair. And he should know. On this month’s Taxcast (our monthly podcast, out
Read the full article…City of London helps UK ‘betray’ US again: this time it’s over China
A year ago today’s TJN blogger wrote an article for The American Interest magazine entitled Putin, the U.S. and the City of London: The Much-Too-Special-Relationship. It made the bold statement: “The truth is that the City of London is a greater potential threat to the national security of the United States than almost anyone supposes.” And it quoted Ben Judah, author of
Read the full article…Did Ireland’s 12.5 percent corporate tax rate create the Celtic Tiger?
From the Fools’ Gold Blog, a new TJN-backed project on ‘competitiveness’. This article has also been cross-posted with Naked Capitalism. Update 2, 2020: New World Bank measures of wellbeing show Ireland lagging significantly behind its major European peers. Update 1, 2019: This issue is explored much more fully in the Celtic Tiger chapter in the Finance Curse book. Ireland has
Read the full article…First newsletter of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice
This is the first newsletter of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice. For the full version, with images, click here. To sign up for GATJ’s newsletter, please click here. Welcome to the first newsletter of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice (versión en español abajo). Happy International Women’s Day Gender equality and tax justice are top of our agenda with two
Read the full article…New Expert Global Commission Responds to One-Sided Tax Debate
This press release was put together by a group of organisations including TJN. Expert Global Commission Responds to One-Sided Tax Debate; Inaugural Meeting to drive changes ahead of Post-2015 Ambition Responding to widespread anger about corporate tax avoidance, the impacts of such avoidance on inequality and poverty, and concerns that current tax reform processes are inadequate, a new nonpartisan body— the Independent
Read the full article…Fools’ Gold: new project on ‘competitiveness’
TJN has been incubating a new project to look at the issue of the ‘competitiveness’ of nations, a subject that has been dear to our heart for a long time. With help from the University of Warwick in the UK, the idea is to create new communities and discussions over this subject. While tax ‘competition’ (which we prefer to call tax wars)
Read the full article…Event: can low income countries ever tax transnational corporations?
From the Institute of Development Studies: Wednesday 11 March 2015 13:00 to 14:30 IDS, Convening Space Mick Moore will talk as a political realist and Alex Cobham, Research Director of the Tax Justice Network, as a magical realist. About the series Inequalities in various forms have been rising in most parts of the world since the 1980s, but only recently
Read the full article…New report: how corrupt capital is used to buy property in the UK
From Transparency International, a landmark study looking at the role the UK’s real estate sector has played in laundering the world’s money. We don’t have time to do this justice, but the world’s media has done a good job covering it. Unmask the Corrupt: How UK Property Launders the Wealth of the Global Corrupt. Also see this recent excellent New York
Read the full article…Quote of the day – accountants and austerity
Want to know why austerity is so popular among the political classes of so many countries? Well, there are many reasons, but here is one you may not have considered. From Prof. Prem Sikka, via email: “Accountants are trained to be class warriors and austerity is written into their psyche as they are taught to reduce labour cost, but never
Read the full article…How to kickstart sluggish growth: tax corporations more
The Financial Times columnist John Plender he has written an exellent article that contains a number of points – every single one of which, bar one, has previously been argued by TJN. We won’t summarise them all – please read the full article, if you have a subscription, but it’s almost uncanny how much he agrees with our position (whether he’s read our
Read the full article…On using tax holidays to ‘pay for’ stuff
From Jaimie Woo in the Huffington Post: “A strangely popular proposal would give companies a temporary tax holiday, letting corporations bring back their money on paper, or “repatriate” it at an extremely low tax rate, thereby encouraging more corporate tax dodging in the future. The most ridiculous part? Some Members of Congress want to use this tax break that costs
Read the full article…The UK Gold – watch the UK Network Premiere
The documentary film UK Gold, looking at Britain’s role in the world of tax havens and in international tax issues more generally, is having its first network premiere tonight, on London Live. The music score is now available, courtesy of UK Uncut, here. Details are here, with background reading from Richard Murphy, here. And here is another reminder – as if
Read the full article…It’s time to stop extraditing public-interest whistleblowers
TJN has just co-signed a letter published by the U.S. Governmental Accountability Project (GAP,) drawing attention to the topsy-turvy situation where whistleblowers acting in the public interest are being extradited to other countries, under procedures that were originally created to fight against Mafia organisations, terrorist financiers, international criminals and so on. Tools for fighting for the public interest are being turned against
Read the full article…Whistleblowers – the new countercultural heroes
From Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone magazine: “This is the age of the whistleblower. From Chelsea Manning to Edward Snowden to the latest cloak-and-dagger lifter of files, ex-HSBC employee Hervé Falciani, whistleblowers are becoming to this decade what rock stars were to the Sixties — pop culture icons, global countercultural heroes.” Among other things, it’s time to start treating jailed
Read the full article…
