From the Financial Secrecy Media Monitor: "Thanks to a promoted tweet from Jersey Finance comes news of the International Fund & Product Awards 2014, in which Jersey won the Best International Financial Centre award. Other winners were Standard Bank Offshore Group for Best International … [Read more...]
Tax and corporate responsibility
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 … [Read more...]
The Offshore Wrapper: a week in tax justice
The Offshore Wrapper is written by George Turner Football: a game of two halves - corruption and scandal The World Cup of scandal and corruption rolls on. This week Global Witness has exposed the role of the Brazilian Development Bank, Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social, in … [Read more...]
From The Namibian: an open letter to De Beers on transfer pricing
FROM TODAY'S EDITION LETTERS AS NAMIBIAN political activists, we are writing to you because we are greatly concerned about your transfer-pricing methods. We know that transfer-pricing occurs when two companies from the same multinational corporation trade with each other. … [Read more...]
Tax, corporate responsibility and human rights: new paper
From the Boston University Law Review, a paper by Jasmine Fisher entitled Fairer Shores: tax havens, tax avoidance and corporate social responsibility. Its introduction contains this: "The doctrine of corporate social responsibility provides a logical rationale for multinational corporations 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...]
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...]
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...]
Vodafone subvertisement: taxes are for people, not for massive corporations
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 … [Read more...]
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 … [Read more...]
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 … [Read more...]
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 … [Read more...]
Why companies put together for tax reasons will be fragile
A while ago we explained how tax avoidance by multinational corporations is like refined sugar in the human body: empty financial calories with adverse long-term health effects. Now we have an article from Financial Times columnist John Gapper, who has looked at the tax-arbitrage nonsense … [Read more...]
Ethical shareholders call on Google to stop its tax abuses
The Domini Social Equity Fund and its partners have submitted a shareholder proposal to Google for its annual meeting on May 14th urging it to do something about its systematic tax abuses. We just blogged a petition in support of this proposal, which we'd urge readers to sign. The shareholder … [Read more...]
