As we work towards the publication of the next Financial Secrecy Index, today we are publishing a guest post from Peter Ringstad from TJN Norway on the history of Cyprus as a tax haven. The FSI includes with it a number of narrative reports on the history and development of a range of … [Read more...]
TJN
Redistributive hypocrisy: The growing dominance of tax haven USA
We're delighted to bring you a guest blog by Lukas Hakelberg, a researcher from the University of Bamberg - one of our partners in the EC-funded COFFERS project. The blog outlines the motivation and key findings of a study by Lukas and a colleague, Max Schaub. We've been raising the alarm about … [Read more...]
Tax Justice Annual Conference 2017, 5-6 July: Final Programme
#tjn17 GLOBAL TAX JUSTICE AT A CROSSROADS SOUTHERN LEADERSHIP AND THE CHALLENGES OF TRUMP AND BREXIT City, University of London, 5-6 July 2017 The Association for Accountancy & Business Affairs (AABA), City, University of London (CityPERC), and the Tax Justice Network (TJN), are … [Read more...]
Two days left to end financial secrecy in the UK’s Overseas Territories?
UK parliamentarians have the opportunity to take historic action over the next two days, ending decades of financial secrecy in the UK's Overseas Territories. As Parliament closes down before the General Election which will take place on the 8th June, a lot of ongoing business is now at risk. A … [Read more...]
Open Cayman: Reputation, rhetoric and reality
By Alex Cobham https://youtu.be/2An-A4U00DU?t=23m16s Last week I took up the kind invitation of the government of Cayman to speak at their conference on 'Tax Transparency in the Global Financial Services Ecosystem', and to meet with staff from the monetary authority, statistics office and … [Read more...]
The Tax Justice Network’s webinar on the next Financial Secrecy Index
The Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index ranks jurisdictions according to their secrecy and the scale of their offshore financial activities. It’s a politically neutral ranking, the world’s most effective tool for understanding global financial secrecy, tax havens and secrecy … [Read more...]
Panama Papers Committee investigates in London UK, home to 2,000 ‘enablers’
UPDATE: 15 February 2017, London - Bloomberg has reported that the chairman of the EU's Panama Papers inquiry has criticised the UK Treasury for refusing to meet with its investigatory team during the recent fact-finding visit to London. Read more here. Last year the Panama Papers scandal shook … [Read more...]
TJN moves forward with work on 2017 Financial Secrecy Index
The next financial secrecy index has now reached its first big milestone with questionnaires being sent out to 112 jurisdictions. … [Read more...]
Tax Justice Network: A transition
After 13 years, our founding executive director John Christensen is stepping down. We’re delighted that John will stay on and become our new board chair. And I (Alex Cobham) am honoured to accept the role of chief executive at TJN. Since I took up the post of Director of Research at the start of … [Read more...]
Some countries “lose” 2/3 of exports to misinvoicing
From UNCTAD, the UN Conference on Trade and Development, via email: "Some commodity dependent developing countries are losing as much as 67% of their exports worth billions of dollars to trade misinvoicing, according to a fresh study by UNCTAD, which for the first time analyses this issue for … [Read more...]
New questions over Juncker’s role in Amazon Luxembourg affair
Jean-Claude, Juncker, the President of the European Commission, has long tried to distance himself from his role as one of the key architects of Luxembourg's crime-fueled tax haven factory. An excellent new investigation by Newsweek now reminds us of his efforts to display whiter-than-white … [Read more...]
New tax justice platform in Spain
From the Global Alliance for Tax Justice, on June 28: "On June 28th , Madrid saw the presentation ceremony of the Spanish Plataforma por la Justicia Fiscal (Platform for Tax Justice),an alliance of public organizations, trade unions, social movements, NGOs and others society civil groups. The … [Read more...]
New ranking of how transparent the think tanks are
From Transparify.com, a new report: "We visited think tanks’ websites and looked at the funding and donor information disclosed online, including in online annual reports. Institutions rated with the maximum of five stars are highly transparent about who funds them. Think tanks with four stars are … [Read more...]
TJN sparring partner caught up in Panama Papers scandal
Back in 2005 a lobby group in Washington, D.C. issued a press release entitled Tax Justice Network Sides with Europe's Tax Collectors, Ignores Critical Role of Low-Tax Jurisdiction in Protecting Human Rights and Promoting Pro-Growth Policy. The bizarre press release accused us of putting at risk … [Read more...]
What if tax reform was a fundamental human right?
In January we blogged our 2016 Tax Justice and Human Rights essay competition, in partnership with Oxfam. It was a competition aimed at legal students and professionals, seeking ideas on how human rights law can be used in the fight against tax dodging. The winning student submission was from … [Read more...]
