New Bank Leak Shows How Rich Exploit Tax Haven Loopholes ICIJ See also: Offshore secrets of the UK's wealthy political donors The Guardian Black money trail: No list of Indians holding money in Swiss banks, says Arun Jaitley Financial Express See also: Delhi searches for wealth in overseas tax … [Read more...]
Secrecy
Links Jul 8
Key IMF policy paper released on tax havens and development European Institute for International Law and International Relations See also our recent blog on the IMF report here. Make ‘Justified’ Requests Swiss Banks Tell India Business Insider And to compare and contrast: Swiss banks threaten … [Read more...]
Links Jul 4
FATCA Just a Band Aid for Latin American Tax Evasion Inter Press Service Cites TJN's Andrés Knobel, pointing out that the limiting factor for developing countries is that FATCA is bilateral. See also: FATCA: Dropping the bomb The Economist - The article is quite harshly critical of FATCA, but does … [Read more...]
Links Jul 3
Africa: Regional integrated tax systems needed to curb illicit financial flows New Vision See also: Why Africa Must be at Heart of Global Tax Reforms Chimpreports.com Switzerland Agrees Tax Regime Review With EU Tax-News … [Read more...]
Links Jul 1
Offshore Tax Crackdown Opens With 30% Penalties for Banks Bloomberg See also: FATCA Is Finally Here -- Even In Russia & China Forbes Swiss banks to tell all under FATCA swissinfo While events are moving in the right direction, such declarations remain something of a smokescreen, as assets … [Read more...]
Links Jun 30
Argentina's Vice President Charged With Bribery abc news Vice president accused of hiding behind a shell company so he and other secret partners could benefit from unusual tax exemptions and lucrative government contracts. Zambia Refusing to Release $600 Million in VAT Refunds to Mining … [Read more...]
Manhattan real estate: a little tax haven in America
From New York Magazine, a long article about the high-end New York property market, echoing recent stories (such as this one) about One Hyde Park and the British tax haven. "Those with less reflexively hostile reactions to foreign buying competition might still wonder: Who are these people? An … [Read more...]
The Swiss commodity black hole: a bizarre new government proposal
From the Berne Declaration and Swissaid: "The Federal Council today announced its wish to close the Swiss gaps in transparency for the global commodity industry. But the entire commodities trading business may well be excluded from any future regulation." … [Read more...]
Links Jun 26
Australia dragging chain on G20's global tax crackdown The Sydney Morning Herald Bangladesh: Money flies away from Bangladesh The Daily Star "UNDP study shows grim trend of massive illicit capital flight". See also: 62% rise in Swiss bank deposits The Daily Star … [Read more...]
Links Jun 25
The Twin Insurgency The American Interest "The postmodern state is under siege from plutocrats and criminals who unknowingly compound each other’s insidiousness." Bangladesh: Anti Poor Tax Policy in Budget 2014-15 denies Redistributive Justice equitybd … [Read more...]
New report: developing countries want automatic information exchange
From the International Tax Review: "The Tax Justice Network (TJN) has accused the OECD of not consulting developing countries about the design of the framework for Automatic Information Exchange (AIE), which the G20 has endorsed as the global model for information exchange." Our new report was … [Read more...]
Links Jun 20
Why big time tax dodgers love Mr Juncker Private Eye See also recent blog Architect behind Eurozone’s biggest tax haven wants to be EC president EU closes tax loophole for multinational firms Reuters See also: Anti-Money Laundering: Commissioner Barnier welcomes progress in Council European … [Read more...]
Links Jun 19
G8 Has Yet To Live Up To Its Promises On Tax And Transparency Financial Transparency Coalition Blog Swiss Cabinet to examine tax deductible bank fines swissinfo … [Read more...]
Links Jun 18
The True Cost of Hidden Money - A Piketty Protégé’s Theory on Tax Havens The New York Times "What’s beyond question is that there is no economic, political or moral justification for tax evasion - it exists only because of the political influence that wealth buys. A society that fails to fight … [Read more...]
Big Bills: how our central banks nurture money launderers and kleptocrats
A question for our European readers. How many of you have ever spent or even seen a 500 Euro note? No, neither have we. Which is may seem odd, given that there are some 300 billion Euros' worth of these things out there, in circulation. Which raises the question: where are they all? … [Read more...]