About Nick Shaxson
Over 95% of Britons want a more progressive tax system
From The Equality Trust, in a report on the United Kingdom: “Public support for a more progressive tax system is high. Over eight in ten (82%) believe that households in the highest 10% income group should pay a greater proportion of their income in tax than those in the bottom 10%. An even greater majority (96%) would like the tax system
Read the full article…Quote of the day: big accountancy firms have a human rights problem
From Prem Sikka our quote of the day comes from an article entitled Big accountancy firms have a human rights problem: “In many other organisations such subversion of the human rights would be considered to be a badge of shame. At major accountancy firms it is increasingly considered to be a sign of business acumen.” This follows news that the Big Four
Read the full article…The Offshore Wrapper: a week in tax justice
Updated with a clarification of Prince Charles’ tax affairs. The Offshore Wrapper is written by George Turner Democracy is bad for you In move that can only be described as nuts, the big four accountancy firms, PWC, Deloitte, Ernst and Young and KPMG have clubbed together to take out a full page advert in Hong Kong newspapers opposing the pro-democracy
Read the full article…Manhattan real estate: a little tax haven in America
From New York Magazine, a long article about the high-end New York property market, echoing recent stories (such as this one) about One Hyde Park and the British tax haven. “Those with less reflexively hostile reactions to foreign buying competition might still wonder: Who are these people? An entire industry of brokers, lawyers, and tight-lipped advisers exists largely to keep
Read the full article…Quote of the day on the OECD’s tax project: “let’s hope nothing happens”
From the Financial Times, in a story about a conference on the OECD’s much-discussed BEPS project to reform international tax rules for transnational corporations: “The gameplan is to be positive but hope as little as possible happens,” is how Paul Oosterhuis, a tax partner of Skadden Arps, the US law firm, described the attitude of US corporations to government proposals
Read the full article…Big Four firms officially sell out Hong Kong’s democracy movement
Updated with commentary from the Financial Times and Bloomberg: see below CNBC is reporting: “As a pro-democracy movement gains steam in Hong Kong, some worry the campaign could hurt the city’s competitiveness and rattle its financial market.” One could unpack that short sentence and probably find five or ten nonsenses and fallacies coiled up inside it. So democracy is the
Read the full article…The Swiss commodity black hole: a bizarre new government proposal
From the Berne Declaration and Swissaid: “The Federal Council today announced its wish to close the Swiss gaps in transparency for the global commodity industry. But the entire commodities trading business may well be excluded from any future regulation.” TweetShare
IMF: tax havens cause poverty, particularly in developing countries
The IMF has a major new Policy Paper out entitled Spillovers in International Taxation, looking at the effects that one country’s tax rules and practices can have on others. Of course this is a Staff Report and the IMF would never be so rude to some of its most powerful member states as to explicitly say what is in our headline – but
Read the full article…The UK’s ‘open for business’ tax regime: investment falls
We were going to do a job on this report but Tax Research got there first, so we’ll cut and paste: UK corporation tax policy fails to attract new business as Foreign Direct Investment falls From the time that the current government came into power corporation tax reform has been one of their key objectives. The result has been a
Read the full article…Why big time tax dodgers love Jean-Claude Juncker
From Private Eye, a commentary on Jean-Claude Juncker, and our quote of the day: “Supporters of would-be European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker should perhaps pause to examine the great man’s record of wreaking fiscal havoc across the continent.” . . . [under his tutelage] the Grand Duchy became the member of the economic club that pilfered from the club’s funds. Our
Read the full article…The Impacts of Illicit Financial Flows on Peace and Security in Africa
From Alex Cobham of the Center for Global Development, a paper for the Tana High-Level Forum on Security in Africa 2014. It’s called, as our title suggests, The Impacts of Illicit Financial Flows on Peace and Security in Africa. Published in April, it’s an important contribution to the literature on this large topic, and it teases out many of the subtleties
Read the full article…New report: developing countries want automatic information exchange
From the International Tax Review: “The Tax Justice Network (TJN) has accused the OECD of not consulting developing countries about the design of the framework for Automatic Information Exchange (AIE), which the G20 has endorsed as the global model for information exchange.” Our new report was prompted partly by comments from OECD tax boss Pascal Saint-Amans that “Most (developing countries) are
Read the full article…The June 2014 Taxcast: Piketty, the World Cup, and capital flight
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The alternative offshore awards: an idea whose time has come?
From the Financial Secrecy Media Monitor: “Thanks to a promoted tweet from Jersey Finance comes news of the International Fund & Product Awards 2014, in which Jersey won the Best International Financial Centre award. Other winners were Standard Bank Offshore Group for Best International Banking Service and BNP Paribas – currently awaiting a billion dollar settlement for sanctions violations in the
Read the full article…Campaign: Ireland’s tax model must stop hurting the global south
In 2012 ActionAid published a report estimating that a huge new tax loophole deliberately created by the UK government – which it seems is bringing in precious little in terms of jobs or tax revenues – is also likely to cost developing countries some £4 billion (US$6 billion) a year. Ireland’s dodgy transfer pricing shenanigans – whose history we have written about at
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