About Nick Shaxson
Apply to TJN’s Illicit Finance Journalism Programme
Apply to TJN’s Illicit Finance Journalism Programme We are delighted to issue a call to journalists and campaigners to attend the fifth Illicit Finance Journalism Programme (IFJP). TJN’s financial investigative journalism training course takes place in London between Tuesday 12 May – Friday 15 May 2015 at City University London, Northampton Square, EC1V 0HB TweetShare
Quote of the day: tax-evading Greek oligarchs
From an article by UK journalist Paul Mason, published on the eve of the Greek vote: “As for the Greek oligarchs, their misrule long predates the crisis. These are not only the famous shipping magnates, whose industry pays no tax, but the bosses of energy and construction groups and football clubs. As one eminent Greek economist told me last week:
Read the full article…Haven quote of the day: there are no activities here
From Fortune Magazine, an investigation into Luxembourg’s shady corporate dealings: “The mailbox marked AIG/Lincoln—the name of a partner of the New York–based insurance and real estate giant AIG—is empty and unlocked. Moments later, in the company’s fifth-floor office, I meet AIG/Lincoln’s employee (introduced as the sole one), who, as it happens, also works for the roughly 30 other companies housed
Read the full article…Loophole USA: the vortex-shaped hole in global financial transparency
Update – Aug 2020. A seminal Washington Post article, America the Tax Haven, written by (now) TJN Senior Adviser James S. Henry in 1989. Update – April 2020. New research based on classified documents reveals an untold and previously secret history of how civil servants in the UK, in partnership with bankers (while excluding law enforcement officials) tailored US-devised money
Read the full article…New report: women, tax and economic inequality
ActionAid has just published a new report entitled Close the Gap! The Cost of Inequality in Women’s Work, which does that it says on the tin. It’s not just about tax, of course, but it contains much that is of interest to us. TweetShare
Who runs this place? ‘Policy development’ and the Big 4
We just wrote a blog about tech giants, via a Financial Times article suggesting that they risk suffering reputational damage that could eventually be as bad as the reputational damage suffered by big banks. Well, there’s another category that risks suffering the same fate in future. The Big Four Accountants. This video from Spinwatch is from 2013, but it is worth repeating because not much has
Read the full article…Austerity: the tax dodgers’ best friend?
One might think that if a government wanted to impose austerity, its appetite for tax collection would rise. But this may not be the case. Take a look at this study from the European Federation of Public Services Unions (ESPU,) which came out last October but remains relevant. It’s called The Impact of Austerity on Tax Collection: One Year Later and Still Going
Read the full article…On the historical absence of inequality and tax in the news agenda
This guest blog from Dr Jairo Lugo-Ocando comes just a couple of days after the UK commentator George Monbiot wrote a piece in The Guardian entitled Our ‘impartial’ broadcasters have become mouthpieces of the elite, mostly from a Canadian and British perspective, in which he noted the extent of political ‘capture’ by financial élites: TweetShare
The political mathematics of tech giants
Some political mathematics. A + B + C + D + E = F. Here’s A: US tech giants launch fierce fightback against global tax avoidance crackdown. Reforms “must be resisted.” Now B: The libertarian Cato Institute, funded by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, said it had received support from Google in the form of free web advertising. Among the issues on which this lobby group campaigns
Read the full article…Quote of the day: offshore enforcement as a career killer
From Jack Blum, a Senior Adviser to the Tax Justice Network, testifying to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance: “For years there has been very little offshore enforcement. There was a period in the 1970’s when IRS made some efforts in that direction. The cases were dismissed. The agents who were involved had their careers ruined and there was a 10-year
Read the full article…Quote of the day: we are entering the age of tax wars
From Mark Textor, adviser to Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott: “We are entering the period of tax wars instead of trade wars,” he said. “People vote in governments to solve the problem, and giant multinationals not paying tax is a problem.” One for the Tax Wars page. Hat tip: Mark Zirnsak. TweetShare
Foreign exchange turmoil brings offshore centres into focus
Moves by the Swiss National Bank to remove the Swiss Franc’s currency peg to the Euro has prompted a new round of turmoil in global foreign exchange (FX) markets. We’ve already written about this from a tax justice perspective, but here’s something else. Quite a few currency brokers have gone under in the latest storm, and several are under threat. Today’s Financial Times comments
Read the full article…Report: will top 1% have more wealth than the 99% in 2 years?
From Oxfam, a new briefing, based on updated Credit Suisse estimates. It contains the following factoids: TweetShare
Do not listen to Big Oil’s whining for tax cuts
It’s all so tiresome and predictable. This blog focuses on the UK, but it could apply to any oil and gas producing country. The Guardian has a headline that is more to the point: Oil industry calls for North Sea tax cuts. Meanwhile, the lobbying arm of the British financial services industry fine upstanding British newspaper City A.M. has an innocuous-sounding headline: Government
Read the full article…Will Antoine Deltour become a prisoner of conscience?
So the latest big tax haven whistleblower, Antoine Deltour, is facing the combined massed might of Luxembourg, one of the world’s biggest and most aggressive tax havens, and the Big Four accounting firm PWC, one of the biggest and most aggressive lobbyists for offshore tax and secrecy legislation. Deltour faces up to ten years in prison. TweetShare
