From the Financial Times: "The UK tax authority faces a potential judicial review over its handling of the evasion scandal involving HSBC’s Swiss subsidiary, it emerged on Thursday. Lawyers acting for the international campaign group Avaaz have sent HM Revenue & Customs a letter asking for … [Read more...]
Finance Curse
The Offshore Wrapper: a week in tax justice #58
Former IMF chief arrested for tax fraud The former head of the IMF, Rodrigo Rato, has been arrested in Spain over claims that he has illegally hidden wealth offshore to evade taxes. … [Read more...]
The Offshore Game – new TJN report on offshore finance in football
From The Guardian, a major new story whose introduction runs as follows: "Research by the Guardian and the Tax Justice Network reveals 28 English clubs with substantial shareholdings overseas, opening up the football leagues to criticism for allowing ownership structures that could be used for … [Read more...]
What is competitiveness? #1 – Robert Reich
From the Fools' Gold blog, an article that speaks for itself What is Competitiveness? #1 Robert Reich This is the first in an ongoing series of articles we are planning, to explore what competitiveness is, from the perspective of particular public figures or intellectuals. For the first in this … [Read more...]
New Report: Ten Reasons to Defend the Corporate Income Tax.
UPDATES 2018 - Tax incentives in mining: minimising risks to revenue, OECD/Intergovernmental forum on mining, minerals, metals, and sustainable development. "Tax incentives are costly, leading many countries to forgo vital revenues in exchange for often illusive benefits. . . there is little … [Read more...]
Small countries, big banks: is Andorra the new Cyprus?
Our quote of the day comes from the introductory paragraph of a Reuters story: "With Andorra now added to the list, how many more examples do we need to see the folly of combining a small country with a large banking system?" That's our quote of the day. The lead angle of the story is one of … [Read more...]
In the next taxcast: democracy for sale, via tax havens
Another day, another political party funding scandal. This time it's (again!) the UK, and its third largest party the Liberal Democrats. We will start with a quote. “Tax-haven lobbyists and beneficiaries have captured and corrupted our party political fundraising.” That's not us saying … [Read more...]
City of London helps UK ‘betray’ US again: this time it’s over China
A year ago today's TJN blogger wrote an article for The American Interest magazine entitled Putin, the U.S. and the City of London: The Much-Too-Special-Relationship. It made the bold statement: “The truth is that the City of London is a greater potential threat to the national security of the … [Read more...]
City of London Corporation in ‘failure to support transparency’ shocker
Father William Taylor, an elected member of the City of London Corporation, has blogged an interesting exchange he had last week with Mark Boleat, who chairs the Corporation's Policy Committee. The crux of the exchange is that the Corporation will not be supporting the proposal before the UK … [Read more...]
Quote of the day – accountants and austerity
Want to know why austerity is so popular among the political classes of so many countries? Well, there are many reasons, but here is one you may not have considered. From Prof. Prem Sikka, via email: "Accountants are trained to be class warriors and austerity is written into their psyche as they … [Read more...]
The UK Gold – watch the UK Network Premiere
The documentary film UK Gold, looking at Britain's role in the world of tax havens and in international tax issues more generally, is having its first network premiere tonight, on London Live. The music score is now available, courtesy of UK Uncut, here. Details are here, with background … [Read more...]
Whistleblowers – the new countercultural heroes
From Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone magazine: "This is the age of the whistleblower. From Chelsea Manning to Edward Snowden to the latest cloak-and-dagger lifter of files, ex-HSBC employee Hervé Falciani, whistleblowers are becoming to this decade what rock stars were to the Sixties — pop culture … [Read more...]
How to deal with the likes of HSBC
We're going to quote from an article in 2012 by Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone magazine, which was examining the latest HSBC mega-scandal of the time. He was outraged, as we all should be, at the lightness of the sentencing in a case that had involved shifting money for the massacre-happy Mexican … [Read more...]
New official warning: too much finance is bad for your economy
This is devastating. The Economist has just picked up on an issue that is at the core of TJN's Finance Curse analysis, with a new article entitled Warning: too much finance is bad for the economy. It notes: "One of the biggest political issues in recent years has been that Wall Street has done … [Read more...]
HSBC scandal latest: how the bank captured a British newspaper
The article by Oborne, for those interested in Britain or keen to understand one of the tools that financial institutions use in 'capturing' the minds of the general public, it is well worth reading in its own right. It's devastating. The Telegraph, we should add, is owned by two very peculiar … [Read more...]
