About Nick Shaxson
The Netherlands tax haven: infographic
From SOMO, and a page entitled The Dark Side of the Netherlands. Click to enlarge. Please share. Netherlands Tax Haven Infographic TweetShare
Hedge funds versus tax collectors: quote of the day
From U.S. tax professor Victor Fleischer, in an article looking at how hedge funds and their managers use Bermuda reinsurance vehicles for their tax shenanigans: “The chess match between tax collectors and fund managers will continue. The top 25 hedge fund managers have one advantage, though. They made more than five times the income of all the federal, state and
Read the full article…Report: Switzerland’s role in Shell’s tax avoidance
From SOMO in the Netherlands: “There is not one drop of oil coming out of the Swiss mountains, but still Royal Dutch Shell has eight subsidiaries in Switzerland. Between 2001 and 2005 the Dutch-British oil multinational set up a range of subsidiaries in the country, although these entities are not involved in any productive activities, finds a new report released
Read the full article…The UK’s shadow economy: £40 billion lost to treasury
The Financial Times reports this morning: The Treasury is losing more than £40bn of tax a year because of evasion and the hidden economy, nearly four times official estimates, according to a tax campaigner. Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK, a research group, called for tougher checks on hundreds of thousands of “shadow” companies that did not file tax returns, which
Read the full article…Credit Suisse: We were running a criminal enterprise.
We have written at some length about Credit Suisse’s attempted defences of its long-standing business model, highlighted in a headline “Credit Suisse CEO says a few bankers are to blame for $10bn in tax evasion.” As we said: “The old ‘a few rotten apples’ defence. “Some Swiss-based private bankers went to great lengths to disguise their bad conduct from Credit Suisse
Read the full article…Mining for Gold: tax justice film
We are delighted to provide a short tax justice film covering the Tax Justice Network seminar on transfer pricing held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, last October. The full range of presentations are linked below the film, and will be permanently stored on our Transfer Pricing site. TweetShare
Vodafone subvertisement: taxes are for people, not for massive corporations
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South Africa’s diamond companies: $11m royalties on $1.73bn of production
From 100 Reporters, an article about a major report from the University of Manchester, which is a fascinating case study in transfer pricing. The article begins: “At every step, from mine to ring finger, South Africa’s diamond industry is benefitting from royalty and export tax structures riddled with loopholes, shortchanging citizens of one of the world’s premier sources of diamonds
Read the full article…It’s (faux) tax panic time again – the U.S./Swiss edition
Bloomberg is carrying one of those tiresome stories entitled Brynner’s Tax Spat Augurs Rush to Give Up U.S. Passports. Tax people too much, it goes, and there’ll be a deluge of people rushing for the exit! The story begins: “Almost 50 years after Oscar-winning actor Yul Brynner gave up his passport at the U.S. embassy in the Swiss capital, the number
Read the full article…Quote of the day – Google’s tax avoidance
From Domini Social Investments LLC, a corporate pioneer in the area of tax and social responsibility, which recently submitted a shareholder resolution to Google merely to adopt a set of principles on paying tax. The quote goes: “Investors should be asking Google and other multinationals to adopt ethical principles to guide their tax strategies, considering their impact on society and
Read the full article…Norway pledges to introduce public registry on company ownership
We are happy to report on some good news sent to us by Sigrid Klæboe Jacobsen, Director of Tax Justice Network – Norway. “Today, the Norwegian government today has pledged to introduce a “publicly available, digital registry for information on shareholders of companies”. The Norwegian government will now move forward with work on designing an effective registry that will be accessible and
Read the full article…Quote of the day: Elizabeth Warren
Regarding corporations paying their way, the trailblazing U.S. senator Elizabeth Warren: You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the
Read the full article…Why it’s so hard to audit hedge funds and private equity
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Another reason why corporations may want to be taxed properly
. . . via top-ranked U.S. tax professor Reuven Avi-Yonah, in a paper entitled Just Say No: Corporate Taxation and Social Responsibility. It is US-focused, but has wide relevance. This, in fact, can be seen as another justification of imposing tax on the corporation: Rather than bear any social responsibility, the corporation can by paying its taxes shift that responsibility
Read the full article…Report: the black hole at the heart of London’s FTSE100
From Christian Aid, a press release: “The secrecy surrounding thousands of subsidiaries created in tax havens by leading UK companies has created a black hole at the heart of the FTSE100, a new Christian Aid report warns today. TweetShare
