About Nick Shaxson
Financing development: NGO input for the UN meeting in 2015
Via Eurodad, a position paper on Financing for Development, co-signed by TJN and over 130 other civil society organisations. The paper is entitled UN Financing for Development negotiations: What outcomes should be agreed in Addis Ababa in 2015? and it seeks to provide input from civil society groups ahead of the Third UN Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) due in Addis Ababa in
Read the full article…Some quotes of the week: don’t sign OECD tax treaties
Via Martin Hearson, who has done a useful new blog on Uganda’s tax treaties entitled Uganda’s tax treaties: a legal and historical analysis. The article is by Mr. Hearson (of the London School of Economics) and Jalia Kangave of the East African School of Taxation. For aficionados of tax and developing countries his post is well worth looking at in its entirety; we’ll just
Read the full article…The Offshore Wrapper: a week in tax justice #43
If you want to break the law, ask a lawyer It is not often that this hardheaded Wrapper reporter goes weak at the knees with anticipation. But last week, it emerged that the UK’s Solicitor’s Regulation Authority is investigating what a senior manager there described as “genuinely shocking” cases of money laundering by law firms. According to Sam Palmer, the
Read the full article…Jean-Claude Juncker must push through EU directive on money-laundering
Via The Guardian, a letter co-signed by some TJNers. Update: a slightly longer list of signatories in the EU Observer, here. An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism is here, containing an underwhelming response from Juncker. Jean-Claude Juncker must push through EU directive on money-laundering As investigative journalists, we believe in the critical role of the media in holding
Read the full article…Vladimir Putin, the KGB and the British and Swiss tax havens
From the New York Review of Books, a look at a book called Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia, by Karen Dawisha. The review itself is fascinating, and for TJN this paragraph is particularly interesting: “Dawisha nevertheless argues that the KGB’s return to power begins not in 2000, when Putin became president, but in the late 1980s. At that time, the then leaders
Read the full article…A scorecard on UK tax havens: promises, but little progress
Just over a year ago the British Prime Minister David Cameron, whose family has had tax haven interests for many years, tried to whitewash Britain’s Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies with a statement saying: “I do not think it is fair any longer to refer to any of the Overseas Territories or Crown Dependencies as tax havens.” The BBC, and a number
Read the full article…European Parliament must set up a committee of inquiry on tax avoidance
In the wake of the “Luxembourg Leaks” scandal, more than 30 organisations from the Tax Justice Europe network have written to members of the European Parliament strongly supporting a proposal from Green MEPs to set up a stand-alone investigative committee of the European Parliament to tackle corporate tax avoidance across the union. TweetShare
Tax quotes of the day – Lewis Black, Edmund Burke
Two more, in an occasional series. You can find plenty more on our quotations page. “They’re so broke that they’ve actually cut essential services. In many places, they’ve cut policemen, because, who the fuck needs them? Or firemen, son of a bitch, it’s much more fun watching something burn down.” Lewis Black, U.S. stand-up comedian And, on the fine art of
Read the full article…London protest on Dec 2 to end tax haven secrecy
From Christian Aid, via email (see also this Christian Aid / ActionAid poll (details here) showing that huge majorities think tax avoidance is wrong and that the UK government isn’t doing enough about it): Tuesday 2 December: 8:30 am – 9:30 am Christian Aid protest calling for end to tax haven secrecy Outside Foreign and Commonwealth Office main building, King Charles Street,
Read the full article…CEO: EU Commission gets advice on tax policies from #LuxLeaks tax dodgers
From the Corporate Observatory Europe, an important article entitled Commission gets advice on tax policies from LuxLeaks tax dodgers. It begins: “LuxLeaks documents recently revealed that the consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has created questionable strategies enabling big businesses to avoid tax payments. Our research now shows: PwC is represented in numerous EU-Expert Groups advising the commission on tax policy issues. Moreover, the Expert
Read the full article…How Luxembourg Leaks highlight Europe’s broken politics
A fascinating little European story emerged yesterday, which the Guardian covers like this: “Jean-Claude Juncker’s fitness to head the EU’s executive for the next five years came under lacerating attack in the European parliament on Monday evening, with British, French and Italian far-right and populist leaders denouncing his record in facilitating massive corporate tax avoidance when governing Luxembourg for almost
Read the full article…Update: report on the OECD’s information exchange standard
A month ago we published a preliminary report entitled ‘The end of bank secrecy?’Bridging the gap to effective automatic information exchange, looking at the OECD’s new system of automatic information exchange. We have now completed our final technical analysis of the report. It is not very different from the preliminary version: the main updates are to the timeline section and the main Annex about
Read the full article…Not In My Name: remarkable, rare voices of remorse and mortification in Luxembourg
We have often remarked on how easy it is for financial services interests to “capture” small tax havens or secrecy jurisdictions. It’s a common pattern and a woefully under-studied phenomenon where the capture by global offshore finance extends beyond the policy-making apparatus and successfully neutralises democratic dissent against the offshore finance industry. This capture is achieved through creation of a financial consensus, the fruit of
Read the full article…Switzerland signs up for automatic info exchange. But there’s a catch
So we have this announcement from the OECD. “Switzerland has today become the 52nd jurisdiction to sign the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement [MCAA], which will allow it to go forward with plans to activate automatic exchange of financial account information in tax matters with other countries beginning in 2018.” Which all sounds jolly good, and it is certainly an improvement from a
Read the full article…Quote of the day: secret U.S. tax deals
From Robert Goulder of Tax Analysts, in the wake of the Luxleaks scandal involving the exposure by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) of large numbers of secret Luxembourg tax deals for multinationals, a reminder that Luxembourg isn’t alone in its secrecy: “The IRS [the U.S. Internal Revenue Services] still operates a secretive process whereby multinationals can negotiate bespoke transfer
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