There are two very welcome pieces of tax justice news today. Firstly, the European Commission has ordered the tax haven of Luxembourg to recover 250 million euros in taxes from Amazon, finding that the benefits extended to the company amount to illegal state aid. The support Amazon received, allowed … [Read more...]
Tax Havens
“Trusts: Weapons of Mass Injustice?” A response to the critics
On February 13th, 2017 TJN published a paper titled "Trusts: Weapons of Mass Injustice?", which has attracted critical attention from practitioners and tax havens. This is our response. Our paper, “Trusts: Weapons of Mass Injustice?”[1] asks some deep and searching questions about the role trusts … [Read more...]
The City of London: Capital of an Invisible Empire
In July 2017 director Michael Oswald’s latest film, The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire was premiered at the Frontline Club in London. It has since had several screenings in London and public screenings can be organised from November onwards. This fascinating interview just published in … [Read more...]
Whistleblower Rudolf Elmer may soon release account data from Julius Baer bank
For twelve years now whistleblower Rudolf Elmer has been fighting Swiss banking secrecy, with court case after court case. He's been imprisoned, victimised, and his family has been harassed. His reputation has been systematically ripped apart in a way that we believe has been intended as a deterrent … [Read more...]
The Brexit tax haven threat – rescinded?
Back in January, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer (the finance minister), Philip Hammond, used an interview with the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag to raise what has become known as the Brexit tax haven threat: if the EU doesn't give the UK a good deal, the UK will lead a race to the bottom to … [Read more...]
New research on key role major economies play in global tax avoidance
An important new study on Offshore Financial Centres (OFCs) from the University of Amsterdam has made some fascinating discoveries, challenging, as the Financial Secrecy Index has, the popular misconception that tax havens are only palm fringed little islands and exposing that in fact major … [Read more...]
Half measures mean Mauritius will continue to be a tax haven for the developing world
There was news this week that Mauritius has signed the Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (MLI). This is an initiative from the OECD to allow countries to take measures designed to stop tax avoidance by multinational companies … [Read more...]
Whistleblower Ruedi Elmer vs. the Swiss ‘Justice’ System
We've regularly covered the battles of whistleblower Rudolf Elmer against the Swiss “justice” system. As we've said before, and as has so often been the case with those brave enough to risk all to challenge injustice and corruption, the bank was the criminal, not Rudolf Elmer. He wrote a guest blog … [Read more...]
Evading Tax and Avoiding Tax Evasion: for decades British governments have shied away from tackling cross border crime
Guest blog authored by Dr Michael Woodiwiss (Arts and Cultural Industries, University of the West of England) and Dr Mary Alice Young (Bristol Law School, University of the West of England) In the 1920s, an embryonic tax collecting organisation was steadily growing in the US. The Internal … [Read more...]
The U.K. post-general election: strong, stable and still kind to criminals
The British Prime Minister Theresa May has called a snap general election. We'd like to share with you the thoughts of Dr Mary Alice Young (Bristol Law School, University of the West of England) and Dr Michael Woodiwiss (Arts and Cultural Industries, University of the West of England) on the … [Read more...]
Coming Soon: The Spider’s Web – a film about Britain’s tax haven empire
#RogueLondon Film maker Michael Oswald and TJN's John Christensen have co-produced a new film about Britain's tax haven empire. Titled The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire, the film is ready for release. It draws heavily on Nick Shaxson's ground-breaking book Treasure Islands and uses … [Read more...]
Tax haven blacklisting in Latin America
As governments (slowly) get to grips with the fact that tax havens are inflicting great harm on economies and democracies across the globe, facilitating mega amounts of tax dodging, and vast movements of criminal money by way of the secrecy services some of them offer, the question of our times is … [Read more...]
Panama Papers Committee investigates in London UK, home to 2,000 ‘enablers’
UPDATE: 15 February 2017, London - Bloomberg has reported that the chairman of the EU's Panama Papers inquiry has criticised the UK Treasury for refusing to meet with its investigatory team during the recent fact-finding visit to London. Read more here. Last year the Panama Papers scandal shook … [Read more...]
Is tax avoidance at the heart of Ireland’s economic miracle?
Coming out of the economic crisis Ireland was one of the best performing economies, with GDP growth rates of 8.5% in 2014 and an extraordinary 26.3% in 2015. But how much of this economic activity was real, and how much a fiction created by Ireland's tax haven status? A new paper by Heike Joebges … [Read more...]
Crowdsourcing request: “We are not a tax haven!”
Over the years, we've chronicled the tax haven denial of many secrecy jurisdictions, even building a partial list of those who have publicly claimed "We are not a tax haven!" Now, at the prompting of tax twitter (notably Mary Cosgrove and Stephanie Johnston, with honourable mentions to Aisling … [Read more...]
