About Nick Shaxson
Quote of the day – on tax laws and corporate partners
From Marty Sullivan (pictured), a top U.S. tax expert, speaking last year: “What politicians keep forgetting is that you can’t ‘partner’ with the corporate community when it comes to writing the tax laws,” Sullivan explains. “They’re not partners — they are adversaries.” Someone ought to send a memo to every government in the world. Such as this one.
Read the full article…Three Illicit Flows Targets for the Post-2015 Framework
From Alex Cobham at the Center for Global Development, with hat tip to Tax Research. For an earlier article about the post-2015 framework, please click here. Three Illicit Financial Flows Targets There is broad consensus on the need for the post-2015 successor framework to the Millennium Development Goals to respond to the challenge of illicit financial flows (IFF). Typically IFF involve
Read the full article…UNCTAD: the time for tax justice has come
A press release about the latest UNCTAD Trade and Development report 2014: “Governments, from rich and poor countries alike, should be able to finance the investment and other public spending required to meet the demands of their citizens for a more prosperous and secure life. Mobilizing domestic fiscal revenue is key, as in the long run it is more reliable
Read the full article…On the human rights of bad guys
There’s been a lot of talk recently in the human rights field about tax justice issues – and rightly so. Now a new academic book to add to the collection, considering things from a different angle. It’s called The human rights of bad guys: corruption, asset recovery, and the protection of property in public international law, and the blurb goes: “In
Read the full article…Will the UN take serious action to stop the loss of trillions of dollars to tax abuse?
From Prof. Thomas Pogge: “Intense negotiations are going on at the United Nations about the formulation of the new sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the targets and indicators to be used for specification and measurement. Starting 11 September, the president of the general assembly will host a key event that will feed into the secretary-general’s synthesis report. This is an
Read the full article…Corporate Deadbeats: How Companies Get Rich Off Taxes
A nice cover story in Newsweek from David Cay Johnston, worth remarking on because it’s written so clearly and is a powerful indictment of what’s going on in the corporate U.S. at the moment. A sample from the article: “How can a tax burden become a boon? Simple. Congress lets multinationals earn profits today but pay their taxes by-and-by. In
Read the full article…Basic income: the world’s simplest plan to end poverty
From an article on Vox, explaining the concept: “Basic income” is shorthand for a range of proposals that share the idea of giving everyone in a given polity a certain amount of money on a regular basis. A basic income comes with no categorical eligibility requirements; you don’t have to be blind or disabled or unemployed to get it. Everyone
Read the full article…Do Britain’s super-wealthy non-doms bring in huge tax revenues?
Britain’s antiquated “non-domicile” rule is a relic from an age of empire. It involves defining a person’s tax residence according to, in essence, their tribal affiliation. It’s not the same as nationality or tax residence. As the UK government defines it: “broadly speaking you have your domicile in the country that is your ‘real’ or permanent home which, if you
Read the full article…KPMG offers generous advice that will help tax cheats
One of the most important live initiatives currently in the field of tax justice and international financial transparency is the OECD’s Common Reporting Standards (CRS,) a system of automatic information exchange which we have broadly welcomed – though with some gripes – here. Now it turns out that KPMG, that avuncular global accounting and “professional services” giant, is monitoring the CRS and
Read the full article…Financial globalisation not so great – Bank for International Settlements
We don’t have time today to do this one justice, but it’s an important pair of articles on FT Alphaville – here and here, which are introduced, if not fully summarised, thus: “The consensus among Western policymakers is beginning to shift, however. The IMF officially changed its tune in 2011 by suggesting how emerging market countries could best limit overabundant
Read the full article…How to talk about tax justice, U.S.-style
From Americans for Tax Fairness, a Tax Fairness Briefing Booklet. They say: “To win the fight for a fairer tax system, we’ve got to know how to talk effectively about the issues. That’s why Americans for Tax Fairness published this briefing booklet. It contains guidance on the most effective ways to talk about the economy and taxes; key findings from polls
Read the full article…Finally, financial crime begins to embarrass Delaware
In July we wrote a blog entitled Delaware corporate secrecy and crime: a long-awaited debate begins, with some welcome news about shifting attitudes in Delaware about its business of building state revenues by (among other things) welcoming international and U.S. criminal money. Now, an update. TweetShare
UK-Swiss tax receipts slow to a trickle
Way back then, when Britain and Switzerland had just signed a new so-called “Rubik” tax deal promising to “regularise untaxed assets”, the UK government was promising that the deal would reap £4-7 billion. OK, many people in Britain thought: it was rather corrupt and offensive, but that was a lot of money. Eager tax advisers, aware of the lucrative advisory fees
Read the full article…Public pressure works: new report
We’ve been emailed a paper entitled Public Pressure and Corporate Tax Behavior, Scott D. Dyreng of the Fuqua School of Business Duke University; Jeffrey L. Hoopes of Fisher College of Business Ohio State University; and Jaron H. Wilde, of Tippie College of Business University of Iowa. The abstract notes: “We examine whether public pressure related to compliance with subsidiary disclosure rules influences corporate tax behavior. . . . ActionAid
Read the full article…Feast of the Wingnuts: on the origins of the Laffer Curve
From the U.S. publication The New Republic, a timeless article entitled Feast of the Wingnuts: “All sects have their founding myths, many of them involving circumstances quite mundane. The cult in question generally traces its political origins to a meeting in Washington in late 1974 between Arthur Laffer, an economist; Jude Wanniski, an editorial page writer for The Wall Street
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