The Offshore Wrapper is written by George Turner The Togo triangle: where stolen Nigerian oil disappears Nigeria: the land of lost opportunity. Billions of dollars from oil revenue has literally been siphoned out of the country. The story – and corruption - has run for decades. … [Read more...]
Inequality & Democracy
Quote of the day: on corporate tax policy making
From Martin Hearson: “What my clients are concerned about,” said my friend, “is political interference in corporate tax policymaking.” I found this quite startling. Is it possible that businesses consider corporate tax policy to be a matter for private negotiations between them and the government, … [Read more...]
Tax, corporate responsibility and human rights: new paper
From the Boston University Law Review, a paper by Jasmine Fisher entitled Fairer Shores: tax havens, tax avoidance and corporate social responsibility. Its introduction contains this: "The doctrine of corporate social responsibility provides a logical rationale for multinational corporations to … [Read more...]
Tax Justice Focus – the Human Rights edition
The latest edition of our newsletter Tax Justice Focus focuses on the theme of tax justice and human rights, perhaps the fastest-growing area of interest in the rapidly expanding global tax justice community. Click here for the full edition of Tax Justice Focus, the Human Rights edition. You … [Read more...]
Links Jun 6
EU to Decide Next Week on Irish, Dutch Tax-Breaks Probe Bloomberg UK fails to block proceeds of corrupt Nigerian oil deal Global Witness See also: UK leads charge in some key battles against corruption – now others must follow Global Witness … [Read more...]
Links Jun 5
The World's Movement Toward Tax Transparency Bloomberg BNA Even the Weak Anti-Abuse Measures Contemplated by OECD Are Too Much for Republican Tax Writers Citizens for Tax Justice See also: Republicans Join Business in Warning on Global Tax Talks Bloomberg, and addressing spin in Developing … [Read more...]
Links Jun 4
Anonymous Shell Companies Are Part of the Problem, Too: Often Used to Inject Dark Money Into Campaigns FACT Coalition New Zealand: the Shell Company Incorporation Franchises (V) (and Panama and Switzerland) naked capitalism … [Read more...]
Links Jun 3
The BEPS Monitoring Group: Submission on Hybrid Mismatch Arrangements Mauritius agrees to treaty revision with India STEP See also: India and Mauritius to Begin Automatic Exchange of Tax-Related Information India Briefing … [Read more...]
The Offshore Wrapper: a week in tax justice
Did Qatar bribe its way to host World Cup 2022? The UK’s Sunday Times is filled with explosive allegations that Qatar bought the right to host the 2022 World Cup through a series of bribes to FIFA officials. The reports are based on a leak of a database to the paper. … [Read more...]
Brazilians will pay heavily for FIFA’s “obscene” tax abuses
Four years ago we wrote about FIFA's so-called African "tax bubble" where FIFA was forcing a poor African country to forego its potential football tax revenues in order to funnel yet more money into FIFA's gilded Zürich headquarters and its lucrative empire. We quoted Professor Han Kogels of … [Read more...]
Links May 29
OECD BEPS Webcast Update See the TJN briefing on BEPS here. Rather than write them off, developing countries should be included in new information exchange system Thomson Reuters India PM Modi government sets up special team to probe black money in tax havens VCCircle See also: SIT on Black … [Read more...]
On the non-perils of information exchange
Update: see TJN writer Nicholas Shaxson's Five Myths about Tax Havens, in the Washington Post, April 2016. Back in 2009 we wrote a long blog looking at tax havens' arguments that if they give up information to countries with poor governance, all sorts of disasters will ensue. We think it's … [Read more...]
Illicit financial flows and human rights: attention grows with new report
We've just written about an important report by the CESR and Christian Aid on fiscal justice and human rights, as more evidence that the world is waking up to the crucial linkages between human rights and tax and offshore abuses. Now here's another report, a policy brief from the Hague Institute … [Read more...]
Stiglitz: how to use tax to build an economy
Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz has just published a White Paper with the Roosevelt Institute entitled Reforming Taxation to Promote Growth and Equity. It is a fascinating and clear piece of work, distilling a number of powerful tax principles - and it includes a section on formula apportionment (or … [Read more...]
The Piketty controversy and the offshore wealth problem
As many readers will already know, there's a big controversy going on regarding Prof. Thomas Piketty's world-famous economics work Capital in the 21st Century, with the Financial Times alleging that he faces a 'Reinhardt-Rogoff moment' because of data problems. Piketty responds that he's been … [Read more...]
