We'd like to share with you a press release from the newly launched Tax Justice UK for immediate release: … [Read more...]
Finance Curse
Research shows UK’s Finance Curse grip tightening in next five years
Britain's Trade Unions Congress has published projections showing the increasingly unbalanced growth of the UK economy. As you can see from this map, economic activity is skewed in the direction of England's south-east region, which includes London. It's forecast to produce 40.1 percent of the UK's … [Read more...]
Ten years on, dodgy debt continues to threaten global chaos
In early September 2017, ten years after the collapse of UK bank Northern Rock, TJN will be publishing a special edition of Tax Justice Focus, guest edited by Professor Daniel Mügge (University of Amsterdam) which draws on fresh research from the EU-funded Enlighten programme. In this article … [Read more...]
Our March 2017 podcast: staggering numbers on the high cost of our finance sectors, plus more
In our March 2017 Taxcast: the high price we’re paying for our finance sectors – we look at staggering statistics showing how the US finance sector is a net drag on their economy. Also, as the British government initiates Brexit divorce negotiations to leave the EU, we discuss something they ought … [Read more...]
London and the Finance Curse: the view of a top development economist
The Globalist has just published an article by Helmut Reisen, former Head of Research at the OECD's influential Development Centre, in which he discusses the developmental impact of the recent fall in the value of sterling. He comes to similar conclusions to those we blogged last month; allowing … [Read more...]
Brexit, Pound Sterling, and the Finance Curse
The significant fall in the value of the pound Sterling since the Brexit vote is likely to increase retail price inflation in Britain in the coming year. Many low income households will suffer steep rises in their costs of living. But in the long run might Sterling’s decline help rebalance the … [Read more...]
Finance Curse in The Atlantic: how to mount an offshore coup
We recently hosted Brooke Harrington, an Associate Professor at the Copenhagen Business School, on our Taxcast, talking about her remarkable research on tax havens. She wrote an article in The Atlantic last October, entitled Inside the Secretive World of Tax-Avoidance Experts - which we'd urge you … [Read more...]
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 … [Read more...]
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 … [Read more...]
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 … [Read more...]
Britain’s secrecy web: no corpses on the street, no problem
On the occasion of a global anti-corruption summit in London, Tom Burgis has written a superb long investigation into the City of London for the Financial Times -- read it, if you can get a copy. As a teaser: "For Andrea, the contrast between the American and British responses to BSI’s … [Read more...]
On Luxembourg’s contribution to financial instability
Since the global financial crisis erupted we've been running a web section called tax havens & financial crisis - which looks at the risks that tax havens pose to financial stability. Perhaps the strongest thread running through this page is the fact that tax havens provide escape routes … [Read more...]
Oxfam report: Ending the Era of Tax Havens
Back in June 2000, three years before TJN's birth and at a time when nobody was talking about the issues, the charity Oxfam published a seminal document entitled Tax Havens: Releasing the hidden billions for poverty eradication. It was an important part of global tax justice history. We're … [Read more...]
Offshore Ireland implicated in bank collapse, once again
Update: now on Naked Capitalism (and note the comments underneath.) Update 2, March 1: now with added video at the end: a Live Register report on the IFSC, from 2012. We have written a great deal about the role of Ireland and the Irish Financial Services Centre (IFSC) and its role as an … [Read more...]
National Competitiveness: a Dangerous Obsession
Highlighting a presentation by TJN's Director John Christensen at the Max Planck Institute in December, and a chapter in a new book by two TJN authors, on the same theme. First, Max Planck, which published the details yesterday: … [Read more...]
