About Nick Shaxson
Tax Justice: A Christian (Presbyterian) Response to a New Gilded Age
Recommendations for the U.S. Presbyterian Church’s 221st General Assembly (2014): It is a basic mark of a healthy social covenant that all share in the society’s benefits and burdens. Just taxation is a foundational part of a moral society’s answer to poverty and its close relatives, inequality, economic insecurity, and social immobility. Just taxation is also a key tool for enabling
Read the full article…PWC report endorses country by country reporting for banks
From Euractiv, a statement that would have been unthinkable even just a couple of years ago: “Publishing turnover, staff numbers, taxes paid and subsidies received in every country banks operate in, could boost competitiveness, increase lending and bolster financial stability, the independent study by auditors PwC will find. It will fight tax evasion and not harm investment or result in excessive
Read the full article…Quote of the day: Apple
From U.S. Senator Carl Levin, on Apple’s clash with the European Commission: “Its technological brilliance is dimmed by the financial engineering of its tax lawyers and executives who have stained Apple’s reputation through tax dodging. Successful corporations don’t only make money; they meet their civic obligations by paying their taxes. The EU report has increased pressure on multinational corporations to
Read the full article…The UK’s “Patent Box” – nasty, disingenuous and hypocritical tax law
On September 26th David Quentin, a TJN Senior Adviser, wrote a blog entitled The UK’s “Patent Box” – a really nasty, disingenuous and hypocritical piece of tax law. Now an article based on this, co-authored by TJN writer Nicholas Shaxson, has been published on Naked Capitalism, the widely read U.S. finance site. The article is entitled The “Patent Box” – Proof That
Read the full article…Mapping big corporations: the case of BP
From Open Oil: “With over 1000 affiliate companies, BP controls a complex network of corporate entities. OpenOil, in partnership with OpenCorporates, developed a network of BP’s subsidiaries that aims to shed light on the corporate structure of the oil multinational, active in more than 80 jurisdictions and with ownership chains going up to 12 levels deep. Only using public disclosures that BP itself
Read the full article…Exposed: Illegal Gold, Trade Mis-Invoicing And Tax Fraud In South Africa
A guest blog by Naomi Fowler, via the Financial Transparency Coalition: A powerful 20 minute film just out from Carte Blanche, a major South African investigative news programme lifts the lid on the country’s illegal mining sector. The film takes us on a journey where “poor, desperate people” brave gunmen to go underground to look for gold in atrocious conditions. We
Read the full article…Tweet of the day – on the BBC and tax havens
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Apple’s tax shenanigans finally come under serious fire from the EU
Update: Sept 30 – the original FT story yesterday seems borne out by events – see the original EC document here. Update, Sept 30: UK announces plans to crack down on tax abuses by technology companies. From the Financial Times: “Apple will be accused of prospering from illegal tax deals with the Irish government for more than two decades when Brussels this week unveils
Read the full article…Argentina tax bureau gets Swiss data, while others skulk in shadows
This is a sight for sore eyes. Argentina, a country that has suffered more than most under the scourge of predatory Swiss banking practices (not to mention the banking practices of the UK, United States and others), is making a very public stand. The head of Argentina’s tax bureau, Ricardo Echegaray, has allowed the photographers in to a meeting at the Argentine
Read the full article…Third of Australia’s big corporations pay less than 10% tax – report
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Global Witness: anonymous companies and the threat to the U.S.
From Global Witness, a major new report entitled The Great Rip Off: Anonymous company owners and the threat to American interests. We encourage you to share this one widely, and to read the report, which outlines a litany of evils that are perpetrated through anonymous U.S. companies. TweetShare
Quote of the day – Germany and ‘competitiveness’
The quote of the day, from an article entitled Germany’s Economic Mirage. It’s by Philippe Legrain, former adviser to the European Commission President: “Policymakers should focus on boosting productivity, not “competitiveness,” with workers being paid their due.” TweetShare
Inequality is a choice: U.S. inequality in two shocking graphics.
From the financial blog Naked Capitalism, a post entitled “The Most Remarkable Chart I’ve Seen in Some Time”: Rich Gain More Ground in Every US Expansion. The headline is deserved: take a look at these two humdingers. First: TweetShare
Quote 2 of the day: shareholders, tax avoidance and refined sugar
A second quote of the day, this time from the Financial Times’ Lombard column, a musing on the current U.S. focused news about corporate inversions: “Transactions sold on tax advantages should be sources of shareholder unease too. Governments can readily change their minds about corporate tax regimes (see above) and, more importantly, companies should be looking to industrial logic and
Read the full article…Quote of the day: tax and the rule of law
From Cassandra Does Tokyo, a blogger we’ve not come across, via FT Alphaville: “Why is it so seemingly difficult for the uber-beneficiaries of the rule of law to reconcile their (mostly fiscal) responsibilities to the entente with The People which is the very fount that allows them, and increasingly one might argue, their less-deserving progeny, to maintain a position in
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