A new article in the Guardian Long Reads series, entitled The fall of Jersey: how a tax haven goes bust. (Not as dramatic as this one, but still.) The article heavily features Jerseyman John Christensen, TJN's Director (along with Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK, who has been influential in … [Read more...]
Tax Havens & Financial Crisis
How 1/8th of Moldova’s GDP vanished, via a Scottish council flat
From the BBC: "The UK is one of the easiest countries in the world to set up a company in, and some agents offer to do it in an hour, for as little as £25." In standard parlance, this makes the UK an 'efficient' place to set up a company, reassuringly free of that pesky 'red tape.' All good stuff. … [Read more...]
Dear Ambassador, the Bahamas is most definitely a tax haven
Update: condolences to those in the Bahamas who have suffered from Hurricane Joaquin which hit the islands on Saturday. We should add that those who have probably suffered most from the devastation have nothing to do with the Bahamas' offshore financial industry. The Bahamas' Ambassador to … [Read more...]
Why a ‘competitive’ economy means less competition
From the Fools' Gold site: The 'competitiveness' of a country can be taken to mean many things. Many people, such as Martin Wolf or Paul Krugman, have argued forcefully that it is a meaningless or dangerous concept. On another level it's a question of language: you can make national … [Read more...]
Russia’s offshore financial nexus, threatening financial stability and security
We have for years remarked on the role of the offshore system in promoting financial instability, not least for its propensity to enable financial players to get out from under financial regulations they don't like, then taking the cream from risky activities and shifting the risks onto others. … [Read more...]
Tax havens and Promontory Financial Group: a “safe pair of hands?”
Now this presumably relates at least in part to this recent episode: what the New York Times calls: … [Read more...]
Why tax havens will be at the heart of the next financial crisis
Update: this has now been cross-posted at Naked Captalism This post examines another excellent in-depth investigation by Reuters into global financial stability issues, and the role of tax havens in this giant game of pain and plunder. The investigation uncovers, among other things, a whole lot … [Read more...]
As the murk grows, the UK rows back on money laundering checks
Updated with Cayman-related news. From Global Witness, a new report entitled Banks and Dirty Money: How the financial system enables state looting at a devastating human cost. It's got plenty of detail, but one eye-catcher is their look at the largest penalties given for money-laundering or … [Read more...]
Taxing Money Madness – now is the perfect time for FTT/Robin Hood tax
Taxing Money Madness -- Why This Is A Perfect Time for a Robin Hood Levy on Financial Transactions A guest blog for TJN by James S. Henry If ever there was a perfect time to revisit the proposal to adopt a so-called "Robin Hood tax” (AKA the "financial transactions tax," or the "Tobin tax") … [Read more...]
New US study lends support to Financial Transaction Tax
A new report from the Tax Policy Center (TPC), a U.S. nonpartisan joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, looks at the potential revenue yields from a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) and how the burden of the tax would fall on the U.S. population. It also notes that the … [Read more...]
Justice, interrupted: will bankers get off the hook ever more lightly?
Two Economist blogs in a row: this time we've a fine excuse because their image comes from our TJN Senior Adviser, Jim Henry, who presented this data at the TJN-supported Illicit Financial Journalism Programme in London last week, and gave a preview last February in our Taxcast (see below): "just … [Read more...]
Economist: why it’s time to stop making debt tax-deductible
We've said this before, and we may have felt radical saying it at the time - but now it's The Economist saying it. It has an article entitled and subtitled A senseless subsidy: Most Western economies sweeten the cost of borrowing. That is a bad idea. Quite so. And the potential rewards it … [Read more...]
The Price We Pay – London premiere on 19th June 2015
Harold Crooks' (The Corporation, Surviving Progress) searing documentary indictment of offshore finance gets it UK premiere at the Open City Documentary Festival in London on 19th June, and will also be screened the following week at TJN's discussion workshop at City University. … [Read more...]
How to threaten politicians, the City of London way
This article is all about the language of financial lobbying. The consensus that an "oversized financial centre is indispensible" is strong and at times brutally in-your-face in many countries with oversized financial centres. But this consensus can also be sophisticated and subtle, when needs … [Read more...]
The Offshore Wrapper: a week in tax justice #59
Our quirky weekly news round-up from the topsy-turvy world of tax havens. The piratical Duchy of Luxembourg charges journalist over LuxLeaks What does Jean-Claude Juncker think of this? Luxembourg, the country he led for 18 years and steered in the direction of becoming one of Europe's biggest … [Read more...]
