About Nick Shaxson
Is a financial sector like an oil industry? That graph, again
There’s been a bit of pushback (of course) to our Finance Curse analysis, which some people think is just an empty slogan. It isn’t. Our basic proposition is that hosting a large financial services industry can be like hosting an oil industry: there are many penalties associated with doing so, and in some cases those penalties may well outweigh possible economic benefits. Either way,
Read the full article…Tax wars: Europe lands blow against Amazon
From Bloomberg: “The European Union said Luxembourg hastily approved a “cosmetic” tax deal with Amazon.com Inc. in 11 days, allowing the company to shift profits to a tax-free unit. The EU told Luxembourg officials in a letter that the deal, based on a “cosmetic arrangement,” gives the Internet retailer an unfair advantage over competitors and doesn’t comply with global standards.” Other
Read the full article…Quote 2 of the day – Big Banks, Credit Suisse, and financial crime
A second quote of the day, from U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, following our quote from Switzerland earlier: “If large financial institutions can break the law and accumulate millions in profits, and if they get caught, settle by paying out of those profits, they do not have much incentive to follow the law.” And so it goes. TweetShare
Quote of the day: Swiss Franc
The value of the Swiss Franc exploded upwards this morning, after the Swiss National Bank (SNB) removed its fairly longstanding 1:1.2 peg against the Euro (that is, 1.2 Swiss Francs per Euro.) That is an astonishing currency move. Our quote of the day comes from Nicolas Hayek, the chief executive of watchmaker Swatch, via Reuters: “Words fail me! Today’s SNB
Read the full article…Report: every U.S. state taxes its poorest at much higher rates than top 1%
From the U.S. Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), the 5th edition of Who Pays, its signature report that examines tax systems in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Now get the highlights: Every state tax system (Washington D.C. excepted) taxes its poorest residents at significantly higher rates than the very wealthiest 1 percent of tax payers. TweetShare
Quote of the day: offices of UK tax tribunal owned offshore
The quote of the day is from the British investigative and satirical magazine Private Eye: “Buildings occupied by the Ministry of Justice, including Britain’s tax tribunal, are – almost unbelievably – owned offshore in a Mediterranean tax haven, while the attorney-general works from a London office that is owned in a tax haven in the British West Indies, the Eye
Read the full article…Slovak govt. to enact new anti-shell company law after scandal
A guest blog by Miroslav Beblavy, Member of Slovak Parliament for the opposition party Sie?, (who has been involved in drafting the legislation) and Silvia Hudackova, assistant to Miroslav Beblavy. Slovak government committed to enact new anti-shell law after the healthcare procurement scandal The legislative interest in shell companies in Slovakia increased in November because of a scandal involving the purchase
Read the full article…Credit Suisse’s U.S. public hearing on Wednesday
A guest blog by Heather Lowe of Global Financial Integrity, with thanks: As many of you know, Credit Suisse AG (CSAG) was convicted in November of U.S. felony charges relating to assisting (and soliciting) tax evasion by U.S. taxpayers. A consequence of this felony conviction is that, according to Department of Labor (DOL) regulations, CSAG and its affiliates lose their
Read the full article…Oil and mining contract transparency: is a tipping point approaching?
From Open Oil: “a push towards universality – all contracts and all concessions in public domain – is only what is due to the public. Who are, after all, the legal owners of sub-soil resources in every country in the world bar one. What management of a company would be taken seriously if they published a partial profit-and-loss, or balance
Read the full article…Dynamic scoring: “deception, tax fraud, sleight of hand”
We’ve just posted a brief reminder of the economic voodoo peddled by a certain well known U.S. economist, Arthur Laffer. Now we bring you a second, related example of economic prestidigitation: a devious and increasingly popular wheeze known as “dynamic scoring.” It emerged in the United States but has been seeping into the United Kingdom and other countries. The basic idea
Read the full article…Poorer Countries Lose More from Corporate Profit-Shifting
By Alex Cobham. This post was originally published by the Center for Global Development, where I was a research fellow until leaving this month to join TJN as Director of Research. Reproduced, with CGD’s permission. Poorer Countries Lose More from Corporate Profit-Shifting Lower-income countries in general suffer the greatest shrinkage of the tax base as a result of corporate profit-shifting. In
Read the full article…Dublin event: The Human Rights Impact of Tax and Fiscal Policy
Hurry, while tickets last. One to add to our Events Page, and to our Tax Justice and Human Rights page. From Christian Aid: The Human Rights Impact of Tax and Fiscal Policy TweetShare
Developing countries and corporate tax – ten ways forward
Our last main blog before Christmas concerns developing countries. We are proud to publish an article by Krishen Mehta, one of our Senior Advisers, entitled The OECD’s BEPS Process and Developing Countries – a way forward. This blog summarises the article, which is about how developing countries can protect themselves from corporate tax abuses, even while they wait for the OECD, a
Read the full article…Mafia, #LuxLeaks and more scandal in the Tax Justice Network December podcast
In the December 2014 Taxcast: how Mafia is corrupting democracy at the heart of Europe in Italy’s capital city of Rome. Also: the #LuxLeaks whistleblower is arrested and makes his first public statements on why he did it, the UK Chancellor’s new ‘Google Tax’, is the EU Commission President Jean Claude Juncker backing away from making a register of real
Read the full article…Eurodad: financial outflows from developing countries more than double the inflows
From Eurodad: The State of Finance for Developing Countries, 2014 This report provides the most comprehensive review of the quantity of different financing sources available to developing countries, and how they have changed over the past decade. TweetShare
