Did Qatar bribe its way to host World Cup 2022? The UK’s Sunday Times is filled with explosive allegations that Qatar bought the right to host the 2022 World Cup through a series of bribes to FIFA officials. The reports are based on a leak of a database to the paper. … [Read more...]
Blog
The TJN app – now available in the Apple store
Recently we announced that TJN had launched a Tax Justice Network app for Android phones - your one stop mobile shop for the latest tax justice news, views and analysis. We are delighted to announce that we now have a version available for the iPhone. Find it at the iTunes store, … [Read more...]
Who’s in control – nation states or global corporations?
We probably know the answer to that one, but in raising the question The Guardian's Gary Younge - always a perceptive commentator - misses out on an important aspect of the question: we, the people, want democratically accountable states in order to raise money and spend it on our behalves to … [Read more...]
Almost all Spanish multinationals use tax havens – Report
Via The Guardian: "Almost all of the 35 companies listed on the Spanish stock exchange use tax havens, according to a report from Observatorio RSC, an organisation that monitors corporate social responsibility. The figures, based on company reports for 2012, show a 31.9% increase in the use of tax … [Read more...]
Brazilians will pay heavily for FIFA’s “obscene” tax abuses
Four years ago we wrote about FIFA's so-called African "tax bubble" where FIFA was forcing a poor African country to forego its potential football tax revenues in order to funnel yet more money into FIFA's gilded Zürich headquarters and its lucrative empire. We quoted Professor Han Kogels of … [Read more...]
Directors’ duties and tax avoidance: a view from the U.S.
Last year we obtained a legal opinion from Farrer's & Co which concluded that it was not possible to construe a director's duty to maximise benefits to a company to include a positive duty to avoid tax. This opinion has helped to nail the urban myth (widely propagated by tax planners to their … [Read more...]
Tax haven Britain: Boots Alliance and the use and abuses of Limited Liability Partnerships
Last year our friends at War on Want published a report revealing that Boots the Chemists - a fixture of most U.K. high streets - had dodged over £1 billion in the six preceding years since it was taken over by the Alliance group. War on Want have now sent a letter to HM Revenue and Customs (which … [Read more...]
In 2009-10, over 98 pct of Google’s and Oracle’s subsidiaries disappeared
. . . disappeared from view, that is. From the Social Science Research Network, an academic paper from last year: "From 2009 to 2010, 98 percent of Google’s and 99 percent of Oracle’s subsidiaries disappeared from the Exhibit 21s filed with their SEC Form 10Ks. However, a March 2012 search of … [Read more...]
Links May 29
OECD BEPS Webcast Update See the TJN briefing on BEPS here. Rather than write them off, developing countries should be included in new information exchange system Thomson Reuters India PM Modi government sets up special team to probe black money in tax havens VCCircle See also: SIT on Black … [Read more...]
On the non-perils of information exchange
Update: see TJN writer Nicholas Shaxson's Five Myths about Tax Havens, in the Washington Post, April 2016. Back in 2009 we wrote a long blog looking at tax havens' arguments that if they give up information to countries with poor governance, all sorts of disasters will ensue. We think it's … [Read more...]
Illicit financial flows and human rights: attention grows with new report
We've just written about an important report by the CESR and Christian Aid on fiscal justice and human rights, as more evidence that the world is waking up to the crucial linkages between human rights and tax and offshore abuses. Now here's another report, a policy brief from the Hague Institute … [Read more...]
Stiglitz: how to use tax to build an economy
Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz has just published a White Paper with the Roosevelt Institute entitled Reforming Taxation to Promote Growth and Equity. It is a fascinating and clear piece of work, distilling a number of powerful tax principles - and it includes a section on formula apportionment (or … [Read more...]
Quote of the day: fiduciary duties
From Adam Kanzer of Domini Social Investments, in an article regarding a recent Google shareholder vote seeking the adoption of a responsible code of conduct to guide the company's global tax strategies: "Imagine a legal obligation, based on principles of prudence and loyalty, that compels us to … [Read more...]
The Offshore Wrapper: a week in tax justice
The Offshore Wrapper is written by George Turner Ireland is not a tax haven Michael O’Leary is the opinionated, controversial chief executive of Dublin-based low cost airline, Ryanair. In typical forthright style, O’Leary believes Ireland “has been unfairly singled out” as a tax haven for … [Read more...]
Private equity: harnessing secrecy to fleece investors and taxpayers
The widely-read U.S. financial blog Naked Capitalism is running a fascinating post about the private equity industry, which involves the release of a number of apparently sensitive documents. The article notes: "For decades, private equity (PE) firms have asserted that limited partnership … [Read more...]
