About Nick Shaxson
Quote of the day: the central question for the finance industry to answer
From The Economist magazine, in an article entitled Counting the Cost of Finance, which looks at a new paper by Guillaume Bazot of the Paris School of Economics, which complements U.S.-based research on finance to look at the situation in Europe. The paper finds, unsurprisingly, that the GDP share of finance has increased continuously in Germany, France, the UK and Europe as a whole, and
Read the full article…Linking Finance to Human Rights: the video
From Center of Concern, a video that fits well with our tax justice and human rights programme. As they note: “Only through financial reform can human rights be sustained. The Center of Concern provides this video for your use in classes, meetings, and other community organizing opportunities to educate viewers regarding the need for financial policy makers to be held accountable to those
Read the full article…Life Cycles: the 18,000 mile bike ride
In 2009 we hosted a guest blog by Julian Sayarer, who was setting off on a stunningly ambitious bike ride half way across the world, on behalf of a few organisations including TJN. He said at the time: “This ride is not for charity, with it I hope to raise an awareness rather than funds. These organisations work to promote
Read the full article…Army of angels needed: a Rabbi’s view on tax dodging
From the Daily Journal, an article by Rabbi Menachem Creditor in the U.S.: “I recently returned from Washington, D.C., where I joined the interfaith, bipartisan anti-poverty group Jubilee USA and other faith leaders and small-business owners from across the country to encourage our elected officials to reform the tax system and protect the most vulnerable among us. TweetShare
Quote of the day: coddling internet infants with tax subsidies
From Citizens for Tax Justice in the U.S. Dear Congress: The Internet Never Was an Infant Industry That Needed Coddling That’s our quote of the day, from their headline. There’s simply no reason to shovel subsidies at this fabulously wealthy (and increasingly politically powerful) sector. Yet that’s what’s happening in the U.S., on the assertion that the internet is a
Read the full article…Howard Davies: the banks that ate the economy
Update: another piece of research here. From Project Syndicate, an article with an identical headline to ours by Howard Davies, former Chairman of the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA). The article focuses on what the iconoclastic economist Andrew Haldane of the Bank of England has described as the financial sector’s “ability to both invigorate and incapacitate large parts of the non-financial economy.”
Read the full article…Quote of the day: CEO narcissism and tax avoidance
From a new paper entitled CEO narcissism and tax policies (via TaxProf): “We document a positive association between CEO narcissism and various measures of corporate tax avoidance and tax risk.” We haven’t read the paper yet but the correlation, which may simply be a matter of amusement for some, is unlikely to be a spurious one. TweetShare
Big Bills: how our central banks nurture money launderers and kleptocrats
A question for our European readers. How many of you have ever spent or even seen a 500 Euro note? No, neither have we. Which is may seem odd, given that there are some 300 billion Euros’ worth of these things out there, in circulation. Which raises the question: where are they all? TweetShare
London march: Join the new Tax Dodgers’ Alliance
From UK Uncut, a march planned for this Saturday (June 21): Come and join the newly formed ‘Tax Dodgers Alliance’. Big businesses and the super wealthy are welcome. Bankers, lawyers, CEOs, new money, old money… What do we have in common? We’re stinking rich & we don’t want to share – our cash is offshore. Come dressed as a tax
Read the full article…Insurance sector seeking to trick the OECD with giant secrecy loophole?
Update: with Gibraltar / Bermuda shenanigans. Last February the OECD, which has been mandated to set global financial transparency standards, presented a major report on a new global standard for transparency and to fight the scourge of tax evasion. We broadly welcomed the project, but noted that it has many shortcomings. The full details of those global standards are still being put together,
Read the full article…Civil society letter to OECD on its corporate tax project
The OECD’s so-called Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project which aims to reform the hopelessly outdated international tax system, has been progressing, and TJN and others have been monitoring it. Civil society organisations, including those coordinated through the Global Alliance for Tax Justice (GATJ), have agreed the text of a Letter to the OECD Committee on Fiscal Affairs (CFA). Versions of
Read the full article…Cambridge University: the Chinese government connection
In March we wrote a post entitled Ukraine’s dirty money: the Cambridge University connection, which highlighted the fact that a Ukrainian oligarch who had showered money on Cambridge university to promote a “Cambridge Ukrainian Studies” department had just been arrested in Vienna on an international arrest warrant at the request of the FBI. Now Cambridge University has been caught with its pants
Read the full article…Euro Commission probes corporate tax arrangements of Apple, Starbucks and Fiat
From Europa.eu “The European Commission has opened three in-depth investigations to examine whether decisions by tax authorities in Ireland, The Netherlands and Luxembourg with regard to the corporate income tax to be paid by Apple, Starbucks and Fiat Finance and Trade, respectively, comply with the EU rules on state aid.” This will get interesting. In 2011, the European Court of
Read the full article…FIFA’s “obscene” tax abuses – part 2: the John Oliver version
We recently wrote a post entitled Brazilians will pay heavily for FIFA’s “obscene” tax abuses, which gained a fair bit of attention and once more put the spotlight once more on the monopolistic, rent-seeking world football governing body based in Zurich, Switzerland. Now U.S.-based TV funnyman John Oliver has a superb investigation of these matters – and others. Cringe, but enjoy
Read the full article…Reuters report: the UK’s “new” corporate tax policies have failed
That’s the impression you get from reading the latest story by Tom Bergin of Reuters, who has done a detailed and excellent exploration of the UK’s recent moves to become more of a tax haven for multinational corporations. The harm inflicted on taxpayers elsewhere? Enormous. Just look at the effect on one single U.S. oil company’s tax bill, with an
Read the full article…
