About Nick Shaxson
Two new transparency advances, in UK and US
From Global Witness: “Information on who ultimately owns and controls British companies goes live for the first time today.” That’s good news, amid all the Brexit brouhaha (and idiotic and dangerous plans to privatise the UK’s Land Registry.) Meanwhile, the FACT coalition in the United States describes a different development in corporate transparency: “The U.S. Department of Treasury released new rules today
Read the full article…Brexit gets worse as London seeks to wriggle free from UK
Cross-posted from Fools’ Gold. We have our own particular reasons for disliking Brexit – the recent decision by the UK to leave the European Union. In a pre-Brexit analysis we quoted Adam Posen, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who articulated what is probably our biggest generic concern: “If you’re anti-regulation fantasists to begin with, you start going down the path, ‘Oh
Read the full article…New ranking of how transparent the think tanks are
From Transparify.com, a new report: “We visited think tanks’ websites and looked at the funding and donor information disclosed online, including in online annual reports. Institutions rated with the maximum of five stars are highly transparent about who funds them. Think tanks with four stars are broadly transparent; typically, they do not disclose the precise amounts given, but instead group their
Read the full article…Luxembourg on trial as Luxleaks whistleblowers await tomorrow’s verdict
Tomorrow afternoon the “LuxLeaks” trial will end and the two whistleblowers, Antoine Deltour and Raphaël Halet, as well as the journalist Eduard Perrin, will know whether they will be punished or not, for breaking Luxembourg’s secrecy regime. They face up to 18 months in jail for exposing lurid details of some of the most artificial and egregious schemes cooked up by
Read the full article…Kenya tax haven approaching: secrecy to be enforced with prison terms
We have for a while been sounding alarms about the emergence of (yet) another tax haven/secrecy jurisdiction in Kenya. A few months ago we quoted the newspaper African Arguments: “Anti-corruption campaigner John Githongo has warned that in this setting, the NIFC “would be like a financial crime aircraft carrier, self-contained and able to cause considerable damage”. We noted, too, the central role
Read the full article…Brexit: the Tax Justice Network backs Remain
Brexit: The Tax Justice Network backs Remain Britain likely to become a full blown tax haven in the event of a vote for leave The EU provides the best opportunity to prevent a damaging race to the bottom in international tax and regulation of the finance sector The Tax Justice Network, an independent international network focused on tax and tax
Read the full article…Finance Uncovered: new investigation into Rift Valley Railway
From Finance Uncovered, a TJN-supported journalism project: “Today, De Correspondent (Netherlands), The Daily Reporter (Kenya), The Observer (Uganda) and MO (Belgium) have published an investigation into the Rift Valley Railway, the historic railroad connecting Kampala to the port of Mombasa. The investigation developed a project of Patrick Mayoyo, one of our members from Kenya and involved journalists from Belgium and the UK. In
Read the full article…More unfair tax treaties may be renegotiated
This time it’s Uganda. From Martin Hearson: “The government announced in its latest budget that it has finished formulating its new tax treaty policy, and will be renegotiating treaties that don’t comply. Seatini and ActionAid Uganda will no doubt chalk this up as a success.” In Uganda, these two local NGOs have argued, apparently with good reason, that the country’s
Read the full article…Swiss whistleblower Rudolf Elmer: ‘they want to crucify me, as an example to other bankers’
Rudolf Elmer, the Swiss whistleblower who has been pursued by Swiss courts for a decade and served over half a year in prison while accused of (according to Switzerland’s peculiar courts) violating the Swiss banking secrecy law, now faces two more court trials: one, on June 23rd, as part of the ongoing case for which he has already been in prison; and one on June 24th,
Read the full article…What might Brexit do for tax havens and tax justice?
The UK votes on Thursday in a referendum over leaving the European Union. While there are dynamics that play in different directions, such a ‘Brexit’ would almost certainly see the UK itself push further down the road of tax havenry, hurting its own citizens and causing wider global damage. The tax injustice effects The most obvious effect, in Britain, is illustrated
Read the full article…Are European Union finance ministers about to deliver another stitch-up on corporate tax?
Update 3, June 21. The EU Press Release is here. Scornful comments continue to circulate. Update 2: This blog is turning into a series of updates in *italics*, with the original background discussion in plain text underneath. Currently, the situation is uncertain – two hours ago, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the president of Ecofin, tweeted: Jeroen Dijsselbloem ?@J_Dijsselbloem 2h #ECOFIN hope for a deal
Read the full article…New paper: Taxing Multinational Enterprises as Unitary Firms
A new paper by TJN Senior Adviser Sol Picciotto, for the International Center for Tax and Development (ICTD). Summary: This paper explores the issues raised for international tax rules of explicitly treating multinational enterprises (MNEs) as single or unitary firms. It first briefly explains why reform of international corporate taxation is important particularly for developing countries, then outlines the flaws
Read the full article…Switzerland is handing back looted money. How big a deal is this?
In the context of a fun Twitter fight and finger-pointing between the Swiss Bankers’ Association and the German Finance Ministry, there’s a newish story on Quartz entitled Swiss bankers swear they are trying to help Africa get its dirty money back. It begins like this: “It irritates Valentin Zellweger that ‘no longer than six minutes into any James Bond movie, a sleazy Swiss banker
Read the full article…Guest article: transparency upside down
Jorge Gaggero, a long-time contributor to TJN, has written a guest article comparing Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranking with our Financial Secrecy Index. (Originally published at Revista Turba.) One ranking is an upside-down version of the other. Those countries which look good on political corruption (the UK, the U.S., Singapore, Hong Kong) are actually among the worst providers of financial secrecy,
Read the full article…Norway’s oil fund: a minor victory for tax ethics
*Big new update* under this guest blog. Norway’s Oil fund, which says it is worth $7.1 trillion Kroner last year (about US$860 billion at current exchange rates), is so important in world markets that a cottage industry of fund-watchers has sprung up. Several civil society bodies have sought to influence the fund, in particular to get it to invest in a more
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