About Nick Shaxson
Video: how London fuels corruption
Anthea Lawson of Global Witness, speaking at TEDx in the British Houses of Parliament. Enjoy. For more on the British role, see here or here or here. TweetShare
Developing countries: a new government revenue dataset
From the International Centre for Tax and Development: A major obstacle to cross-country research on the role of revenue and taxation in development has been the weakness of available data. This paper presents a new Government Revenue Dataset (GRD), developed through the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD). The dataset meticulously combines data from several major international databases, as well as drawing on
Read the full article…Quote of the day – on repealing the corporate income tax
From Citizens for Tax Justice in the U.S. “The idea of repealing the corporate tax seems to have just one virtue, which is that it’s simplistic enough to fit into a blog post or op-ed. In every other way this idea is terrible.” We’ve written about this before, with more to come soon. TweetShare
Burger King’s “shift” from the U.S. to Canada: a move that will cost both countries
Watch Jon Stewart on corporate inversions. Hilariously serious From Prem Sikka: “The US$11 billion merger of Burger King and Canadian coffee and doughnuts chain Tim Hortons is the latest example of a tax inversion move. The deal will see BK transfer its company headquarters from the US to Canada and is clearly not driven just by a quest for control
Read the full article…Shadow banking: why tax havens increase financial risks
From a 2013 paper by Thomas Rixen, another set of arguments why tax havens have helped generate financial risks. The paper itself argues that financial regulatory competition – core TJN fare – is much overlooked. He focuses on: “an aspect that has so far been under-analyzed in the post-crisis literature – state or jurisdictional competition for financial activity as a
Read the full article…Towns against tax dodging: new campaign
From ActionAid, a UK-focused campaign which could easily be done in other countries: Love your community, hate tax dodging All over the world people are taking action to end corporate tax dodging. As political parties decide their priorities in the build up to the general election in May, now is the time to make sure they hear our call loud
Read the full article…Quote of the day: the purpose of corporations
From Prof. Colin Mayer of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, author of the book in the image: “The corporation is a rent extraction vehicle for the shortest-term shareholders.” That’s quite a statement, and it comes via Martin Wolf in the Financial Times. The FT article discussing shareholder value is excellent, and right up TJN’s street. It contains introductory gems such as: “Almost nothing in economics
Read the full article…Risk mining: what tax avoidance is, and exactly why it’s anti-social
Recently we wrote about a remarkable blog by Jolyon Maugham, a tax barrister, a view from the front lines, which we’ll repeat again today, because it’s so startling: “I have on my desk an Opinion – a piece of formal tax advice – from a prominent QC at the Tax Bar. In it, he expresses a view on the law that is
Read the full article…On the City of London’s love-fest with Moscow
From TheCityUK, a powerful lobbying body that supports the City of London and generally supports financial deregulation (see here for more on that): “We are working with the Russian Government on a major project to help Moscow develop as an international financial centre, creating new business opportunities for our member firms. TweetShare
Tax Inspectors Without Borders – an update
Tax Inspectors Without Borders, an idea that originated out of the Tax Justice Network, is coming closer to reality. The OECD website has a section, which we think is fairly new, saying: “The Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) objective is to enable the transfer of tax audit knowledge and skills to tax administrations in developing countries through a real time, “learning by doing”
Read the full article…Secret tax report on Glencore withheld by EIB – why?
From Christian Aid, a press release aimed concerning possible tax evasion in Zambia, and aimed at UK Chancellor George Osborne: Christian Aid urges George Osborne to intervene on secret bank tax report Christian Aid is appealing to George Osborne to help secure the release of a report by the European Investment Bank on whose Board of Governors he sits. The
Read the full article…UK-Swiss tax deal: TJN letter to UK Chief Treasury secretary
In a ‘we-told-you-so’ blog a few days ago we recently noted media reports about the failed UK-Swiss tax deal, which revealed that the UK has sent a team to Switzerland to re-open the useless deal. We warned at the time that it wasn’t going to reap anything like the sums that had been promised. And so it has turned out. Now we’ve written a
Read the full article…Guest blog from Isle of Man: To be, or not to be, a tax haven?
A guest blog by Cat Turner, author and campaigner based in the Isle of Man. “To be, or not to be, a tax haven” As a campaigner for social and environmental justice, I’ve been following with interest the recent debates on whether we on the Isle of Man are – in fact – a ‘tax haven’. The debate’s rumbled around
Read the full article…TJN’s 2013 accounts
We have just published our 2013 accounts. The front page notes: TweetShare
The John Oliver show: why it works
We’re not going out on a limb to write a blog about the world-famous U.S./British satirist John Oliver, former sidekick of the Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart. There’s a good tax justice angle, as you will see. An article in Radio Times begins: “Fifty-two million. That’s the current figure for the total number of views on YouTube for Last Week Tonight with
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