Attempts to tackle corruption have tended to work with a narrow, legalistic definition of the phenomenon, which leaves much that should concern us either out of focus or altogether invisible. In this guest blog, cross-posted from our recent edition of Tax Justice Focus on national security, Camila … [Read more...]
Tax Havens & Financial Crisis
The Financial Infrastructure of Corruption
We recently published a special edition of Tax Justice Focus on national security, guest edited by Jack Blum, Charles Davidson and Ben Judah. You can read their editorial here. In the following article, Yakov Feygin from the Berggruen Institute, argues that the United States could and should use … [Read more...]
Taking Panama to task: Women’s rights trampled by financial secrecy
Just over four years have passed since a huge archive of secret documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, containing wide-ranging details of fraud, tax evasion and other illegal financial schemes, were leaked to a German newspaper provoking a global scandal. The public outcry that … [Read more...]
My billionaire bosses funnelled money offshore for years. Now they want a bailout
We're sharing this personal story from an anonymous writer who has been made redundant in the past month. The consequences of a world where we tolerated the excesses of so-called 'wealth creators' are becoming starkly clear as their lack of responsibility or loyalty to employees and to the society … [Read more...]
Let’s shrink the City of London finance sector, for prosperity’s sake
This week journalist and Tax Justice Network writer Nicholas Shaxson sounded the alarm in Britain's Guardian newspaper about plans for a “Singapore-on-the-Thames” economic model, a tax haven strategy, after Brexit: The strategy to win the great global race to attract financial capital by … [Read more...]
Twenty reasons to shrink your financial centre
(Cross-posted with financecurse.net) The Finance Curse is a concept first developed by the Tax Justice Network. It is a relatively simple idea -- and also an original and powerful multi-level critique of the modern global economy. The core message is "too much finance can make a country … [Read more...]
The Spider’s Web film – now available for free online
Michael Oswald's seminal documentary film on Britain and its tax haven empire is available now on YouTube. Released in 2017 to considerable critical acclaim, The Spider's Web has been screened across the world, from USA to New Zealand. It is now available for free download by anyone who wishes … [Read more...]
Is Germany’s finance minister the puppet of Big Finance?
Update, Feb 22, 2019: German Finance Minister Scholz blocks tax transparency. The Financial Times is carrying an article this week titled "Berlin falls in love with big banks" in which it quotes Chancellor Angela Merkel and her centre-left finance minister, Olaf Scholz, as having started a … [Read more...]
Extreme inequality levels in Bermuda despite its offshore services centre, in the Tax Justice Network’s August 2018 podcast
In the August 2018 Tax Justice Network monthly podcast/radio show, the Taxcast: Why are so many Bermudians leaving their beautiful island? And why have inequality levels become so extreme despite it's huge offshore services centre? We speak to Bermudian economist Robert Stubbs and hear from … [Read more...]
US tax reform and conflicts with international law: guest blog
The US tax bill will be published on Friday 15th December 2017 and will be voted on by Congress early next week. Senior Policy Advisor Didier Jacobs at Oxfam America has written this blog: The Exceptionalist Tax Bill The United States Congress is about to adopt a major tax reform that reflects … [Read more...]
Tax Justice video: How can we avoid another crisis? Expert panel discussion
In this video we hear fascinating presentations and discussion from an expert panel on how another global financial crisis can be avoided, ten years after the first. They focus on the UK, not only on the financial sector itself and the finance curse, but also on the role of the wider financial … [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...]
10 Years after the Crash: building a reform agenda
In November 2008, the Queen apparently asked economists on a visit to the London School of Economics, ‘Why did no-one see it coming?’ Well, we're approaching the ten year anniversary of the financial crash which wiped out Lehman Brothers, saw the first run on a UK bank (Northern Rock) in 150 years, … [Read more...]
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...]
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...]
