Following the latest Credit Suisse scandal in the United States, Ana Gomes, a European Member of Parliament, has issued this public letter to the chairs of the Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET) Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE); and Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON.) We fully … [Read more...]
Secrecy
The Credit Suisse scandal: echoes of Too Big To Jail
We've had a bit of time to look through the landmark Credit Suisse report from the U.S. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, outlining industrial-scale Swiss corruption. It contains some pretty instructive things about some of the ways banks use to get around international initiatives, and … [Read more...]
Tax havens and corruption: Lebedev and TJN in the NYT
From Alexander Lebedev in the New York Times: "According to the Tax Justice Network, an independent group promoting efforts to curb tax avoidance, crooked business people, working with corrupt officials, have embezzled $30 trillion over the last 15 years — or half of the world’s annual gross … [Read more...]
Credit Suisse: industrial scale corruption in Switzerland
From The Guardian: "Senators Carl Levin and John McCain had harsh words for the Justice Department and the Swiss government, too, as they released a 178-page permanent subcommittee on investigation (PSI) report into offshore tax avoidance. … [Read more...]
Automatic info exchange: will Europe’s spoilers soon play ball?
Recently we explored the welcome (if imperfect) news that the OECD had presented its report on a new global standard for countries and tax havens to exchange information with each other automatically: a brand new tool for fighting tax evasion. And a few days ago we reported on a European … [Read more...]
Links Feb 24
G20 Committed To 'Global Response' To BEPS Tax-News See also: G20 Agrees on Automatic Tax Data Sharing, OECD Says Bloomberg, and Multinationals unfazed by G20 tax crackdown The Conversation … [Read more...]
Links Feb 21
Members of the European Parliament take their first step to curb corporate secrecy and phantom firms Eurodad See also: MEPs vote to name trust beneficiaries in public registries STEP … [Read more...]
Links Feb 20
What Russian money sloshing back to Cyprus teaches us about tax havens Quartz "Building a financial system to serve foreign clients first doesn’t necessarily improve a country’s fiscal condition, as fiscal collapses in places like the Caymans have shown before." See also this months Taxcast … [Read more...]
European Parliament votes to end anonymous shell companies
From Global Witness, via email: European Parliament votes to end anonymous shell companies … [Read more...]
Links Feb 18
Tax evasion controversy shifts east swissinfo See also our blog on the failed Swiss "Rubik" deals. … [Read more...]
Links Feb 17
Tax havens: 'Why do we tolerate this?' devex Interview with Eva Joly, chair of the Committee on Development at the European Parliament … [Read more...]
Links Feb 14
Tackling tax evasion: First Standard Automatic The Economist See also: Global tax standard attracts 42 countries Financial Times (paywall) - reports cite TJN's response to the new OECD report on automatic information exchange … [Read more...]
Swiss reject OECD’s new transparency project
Switzerland, it seems, has rejected the OECD's new project on automatic information exchange, out of hand. … [Read more...]
Links Feb 13
OECD takes aim at tax anomalies across borders Irish Examiner OECD head Ángel Gurría said: "... the options are simple: If you cannot tax the big guys you are left with the little guys and middle class to tax, and even if you tax them up to their noses, it won’t be enough. And then politics … [Read more...]
BVI tax haven floats 20 years in prison for whistleblowers
From the ICIJ: "The British Virgin Islands have never been accused of taking financial secrecy lightly. But last week, members of the BVI legislature took a step toward raising the territory’s noted secrecy protections to new heights. … [Read more...]
