A new report out today by Grace Blakeley from the progressive policy think tank IPPR argues for a re-balancing of the business taxation system. Titled Fair dues: Rebalancing business taxation in the UK, the report proposes: a series of reforms aimed at achieving a fairer burden of taxation between … [Read more...]
Corporate Tax
Taxing water and infrastructure in the UK
Michael Gove, the UK's Environment Secretary had some harsh words for the water industry recently. “They have shielded themselves from scrutiny, hidden behind complex financial structures, avoided paying taxes, have rewarded the already well-off, kept charges higher than they needed to be.” The … [Read more...]
Advance tax rulings: Publish or abolish?
Advance(d) tax rulings give multinationals a degree of certainty - but at what cost to tax justice? A range of cases, largely based on leaked documents rather than public disclosures, reveal two major issues: large revenue losses, and a clear risk of corruption. Would mandatory publication be … [Read more...]
The B-Team: Lowering the bar for tax transparency?
The B Team, the leading global group for responsible business, has released a report: 'A New Bar for Responsible Tax'. To our great sadness, it moves the bar in one direction - towards the bottom. When the B Team first got in touch to discuss their plan to work with major multinationals to … [Read more...]
ICRICT ‘roadmap’ for taxing multinationals
The Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) has launched a 'roadmap' for taxing multinationals. This important intervention not only confirms the failure of current tax rules to deliver fair outcomes internationally, but sets the course for a specific … [Read more...]
Seventy-seven nation industrial reserve army
We're sharing in full an article published this month here from one of the Tax Justice Network's Senior Advisers, Tax Barrister David Quentin. … [Read more...]
The US’s ‘Trump/Goldman tax law’ and the race to the bottom
The American Interest magazine has published an article by TJN senior adviser James Henry in which he points out that the damage caused by President Trump's tax reforms will ripple out way beyond the USA, where many citizens will be seriously harmed (we reported on the human rights implications of … [Read more...]
New report: ‘Hybrid Mismatches in Israel’
Tax Justice Network Israel (TJN IL), in cooperation with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, has published a new report on ‘Hybrid Mismatches in Israel’. The term "hybrid mismatches" refers to discrepancies in the tax laws of two or more independent tax jurisdictions or territories in relation to the … [Read more...]
Secrecy, oligarchs and offshore psychology in our December 2017 podcast
In our December 2017 Taxcast: We speak with two time Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist Jake Bernstein about his new book 'Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite'. We ask what makes offshore players like Jurgen Mossack and … [Read more...]
Human rights costs of the proposed U.S. tax cuts
The UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Philip Alston is making an official visit to the United States to investigate the links between the growing phenomenon of poverty and human rights deprivations. This comes at a time when the current administration is working on passing … [Read more...]
#ParadisePapers: The Mauritian Connection
What do Angola’s sovereign wealth fund, the cast of British TV show Mrs Brown’s Boys, and Yale University’s investment in India have in common? The Paradise Papers reveal that they are all connected with offshore secrecy jurisdiction Mauritius, with the assistance of offshore law firm … [Read more...]
Big Four accounting firms are key drivers of tax haven use, new research says
As scandals emerge from the Paradise Papers, the Big Four accountancy firms seem to have managed to stay largely out of the spotlight once again. But research released today shows that scrutiny of their practices is justified in the public interest. The new study is authored by Dr Chris Jones and … [Read more...]
Day 2 #paradisepapers revelations – Global corporations need global taxation
In response to the latest Paradise Papers revelations, which have seen large multinational companies exposed milking profits offshore, the Tax Justice Network is calling on countries around the world to start to tax the global profits of multinational corporations. … [Read more...]
Result: European Commission to investigate UK tax treatment of MNCs
On 23rd January 2016, the then Chancellor of the UK Exchequer (finance minister) George Osborne announced (via twitter) that he had negotiated a tax settlement with Google. On examination we decided that this deal was shockingly poor value for UK taxpayers and, worse, almost certainly contravened … [Read more...]
The campaign to subvert the UN Sustainable Development Goals – TJN presentation from the Pan Africa Conference on Illicit Financial Flows and Tax
Our CEO Alex Cobham recently addressed the 5th Pan Africa Conference on Illicit Financial Flows and Tax, organised by Tax Justice Network Africa and the UN Economic Commission for Africa in Nairobi, Kenya. Alex’s presentation focuses on the debate emerging over the inclusion of the goal to reduce … [Read more...]
