What do Angola’s sovereign wealth fund, the cast of British TV show Mrs Brown’s Boys, and Yale University’s investment in India have in common? The Paradise Papers reveal that they are all connected with offshore secrecy jurisdiction Mauritius, with the assistance of offshore law firm … [Read more...]
Automatic Exchange of Information
The great escape: how tax havens continue to undermine new transparency measures: guest post
We're pleased to share this blog from Senior Policy Advisor at Oxfam Novib, Francis Weyzig, originally published here on how tax havens continue to undermine the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard, an information standard for the automatic exchange of tax and financial information on a global level. … [Read more...]
Swiss Politicians seek to block automatic exchange of banking information with developing countries
Could we be seeing a return to the bad old days of Swiss Banking? A right wing party in Switzerland, the Swiss People’s Party, has launched an assault on the automatic exchange of banking information, according to Swiss Daily Newspaper Tages Anzeiger. … [Read more...]
G20: Pressure rising on tax haven USA
Whilst the eyes of the world focused on the isolation of the US from the ‘G19’ position on climate change, something remarkable played out elsewhere in the process. Following closely the common EU position that we highlighted a few days ago, the G20 communique devotes important space to tax … [Read more...]
Worst fears realised? Jersey shares ‘old’ records of trusts and foundations
Life's full of surprises, some pleasant, some not so much. Imagine you had undeclared offshore assets when the global financial crisis struck, and you've nervously watched the world move towards TJN 's proposal for multilateral, automatic information exchange. Until now you've probably felt ok, and … [Read more...]
Faking residency: OECD’s Common Reporting Standard leaves the door wide open for fraud
The OECD’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS) for automatic exchange of banking information leaves the door wide open for fraud. The OECD has recently made available a form to report potential avoidance schemes of the CRS. While this form is a first useful step - we've been sharing with them the … [Read more...]
Developing countries’ access to CbCR: Guess who’s (not) coming to OECD dinner
It's said that if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. Well, the OECD has just made available the list of activated relationships to automatically exchange country-by-country reports between countries. They use big figures like 700 relationships, but don’t get fooled by those numbers - … [Read more...]
Banking Secrecy in China, its related territories and Taiwan
Foreword. The Tax Justice Network is a non partisan network of experts working towards transparency, so we do not take any position about countries’ territorial and political claims. However, we do expect countries with a de jure (legal) or de facto (in practice) influence over other territories, … [Read more...]
New Report – Delivering a level playing field for offshore bank accounts
The Automatic Exchange of Banking Information, which is due to start this year requires nation states to implement domestic legislation to participate in the scheme. The OECD’s Global Forum conducted a (confidential) first-stage evaluation of the laws of countries that want to participate in the … [Read more...]
Information exchange needs to go beyond tax
The Tax Justice Network is today publishing a report on how governments might improve on proposals to implement automatic exchange of information for tax purposes. The report is based on a survey which was sent to more than 100 tax authorities. One of the most conclusive responses came in how … [Read more...]
