A-Z Archive

An A-Z archive of tax justice is provided below.

See also our online glossary for the meaning of particular terms; Tax Us If You Can, 2012, our core publication on tax justice, and our histories of the emergence of individual tax havens (click on the individual country).

A-Z Archive

• Accountability, and political accountability from tax. See this special edition of Tax Justice Focus (2007) and this TJN web section.

• Accounting. See International Accounting Standards Board, below, and Country by Country Reporting, below.

• Africa. See our Tax Justice for Africa web site and our section on aid and finance for development, and the section on transfer pricing, below. See also this speech (Jan ’08) by South Africa’s Finance Minister, Trevor Manuel and the section on political accountability, above.

• Aid, Tax and state building See the TJN web section  Aid, Tax, and State Building.  

• Amnesties, tax amnesties, see Repatriation.

• Banks. See the TJN web section on the Financial Sector.

• Britain as an offshore centre, and its dependencies. A few key links.
  The British Connection: from the Financial Secrecy Index, 2013.
  A history of Britain and the offshore world, Oct, 2013.
  A tale of Two Londons, Vanity Fair, April 2013
  Britain’s Second Empire, Prof. Ronen Palan, Aug 2012
  New report into the UK’s Overseas Territories and developing countries, Christian Aid and IF campaign, June 2013
  This report estimates tax lost to the UK Government from tax avoidance.

• British Virgin Islands (BVI). See our narrative report on the BVI, and associated links.

• Canada. See our Oct 2013 narrative report on Canada’s role in the global offshore system. See also Canadians for Tax Fairness.

• Capital Controls: IMF’s historic 2012 steps here, with more here and here.

• Capital Flight. See our capital flight page.

• Capitalism’s Achilles Heel  A review by TJN’s John Christensen in the London Review of Books, examining Raymond Baker’s ground-breaking book on dirty money. Oct 2005.

• Church See this December 2008 blog about the Catholic Church’s new Reflection Paper dealing with tax havens.

• Cayman Isles. See our history of the Cayman Islands as an offshore financial centre, October 2013, and associated links.
  
  
• City of London Corporation. See Treasure Islands, 2011 (except for the US edition) for an exploration of the role of the City of London Corporation in Britain. See also The UK Gold Film (2013) and the narrative report on the UK as an offshore centre, Oct 2013.

• Code of Conduct for Tax A proposed UN Code of Conduct; see here. For a TJN Code of Conduct click here , 2007; see the supporting arguments here)

• Combined Reporting. See unitary taxation.

• Common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB). See this basic primer in the Irish Times, March 2011. See also unitary taxation.

• Companies, corporations. For corporate tax avoidance, see here. For corporate responsibility, see here. For the Tax research CSR archive, see here.

• Corporate Responsibility. See our webpage, see here.

• Corruption and tax justice. See our webpage here.

• Country by Country reporting. See our webpage, here, and our briefing paper on the subject. Also see Tax Research’s section on country by country reporting.

• Crown dependencies, overseas territories (UK). See Britain. See also our 2013 narrative reports on BVI, Jersey, Cayman.

• Deferral, deferred tax. See this 2006 publication Mind the Tax Gap; this 2010 blog (and associated links) and this January 2011 report from Citizens for Tax Justice and their subsequent March 23 report.

• Delaware. For an exploration of the emergence of the Delaware financial centre, see Treasure Islands. See also this 2012 New York Times article; and this April 2011 academic study Exploring the Role Delaware Plays as a Domestic Tax Haven.

• Dictionary of Offshore Obfuscation. A light-hearted look at some commonly used terms.

• Domicile, tax domicile (UK.) For some basic principles, see this video. TJN report on domicile, March 2007 .

• Double Tax Agreements (DTAs) or Tax Treaties. See our dedicated web page on Tax Treaties.

• Dubai. See our Oct 2013 narrative report on how Dubai became a tax haven.

• Economic crisis since 2007-8, financial crisis. See our dedicated webpage explaining the links with tax havens.

• Estate taxes. See Inheritance taxes.

• Extractive Industries. See this 2011 report mapping extractive industries in tax havens. Also  see Original here

• Exchange of Tax Information between countries. See Information Exchange.

• European Union Savings Tax Directive. See this TJN briefing paper, March 2008. See also Mark Morris‘ site: a private practitioner’s view.

• FATCA Act (US) See this short memorandum on FATCA, and this 2012 update. Also see Information exchange, below.

• Finance for Development see Aid, tax and state building; and Capital Flight, above.

• Financial Action Task Force (FATF). This TJN blog highlights its role in legitimising the illegitimate. This Financial Times comment piece by TJN also gives a broad overview of the problems, and discusses solutions.

• Financial crisis, since 2007. See here for TJN’s web section and this Sept 2008 blog (with associated links) and this special edition of Tax Justice Focus (July 2008).

• Flat taxes. See this short TJN piece (and associated links) or this short article, or this longer discussion paper. For the Tax Research blog archive, click here. This IMF paper also casts doubt on flat taxes.

• Formulary Apportionment. See Unitary Taxation, below. This 2011 ITEP document (p46) shows how U.S. states are successfully using formula allocation approaches.

• Foundations. See this TJN exploration of Jersey and Guernsey foundations, and this offshore practitioner’s guide for some explanation and history.

• France. See this special edition of Tax Justice Focus, in English and en Français.

• General Anti-Avoidance Principle (GAntiP) – see here, and associated links. Also see General Anti-Avoidance Rule for UK, here and here.

• Germany. See our Oct 2013 narrative report on Germany’s role in the offshore system.

• Glossary. See our online glossary here.

• Guardian archives. See its tax avoidance section, regularly updated, and its tax gap section for the UK, here.

• Guernsey. For the Tax Research blog archive, click here. See this TaxAnalysts study on Guernsey’s tax evasion potential.

• Hedge Funds. See this short blog on their tax subsidies.

• Hong Kong. See our Oct 2013 narrative report on how Hong Kong became a tax haven.

• History of tax, tax havens, offshore. See our dedicated historical web section. For histories of individual tax havens, click on the relevant jurisdiction here.

• Illicit Financial Flows See our web section on capital flight.

• IMF/World Bank, tax advice. See Alex Cobham, The Tax Consensus Has Failed (longer version here.)

• Incentives, tax incentives. See our tax competition page. See also these 2012 OECD draft principles for tax incentives in developing countries, and associated links. See also this 2009 IMF paper exploring whether tax incentives boost growth in developing countries, and see here. See also this 2004 study and literature review on the effects of tax incentives offered by U.S. states, and this example from the film industry. (See also tax cuts, below.)

• Incidence, tax incidence: where does the burden of a particular tax fall? See this TJN blog and associated links. See this Guardian article and this NYTimes blog and this CBO study which concludes that corporation taxes tend to fall on owners of capital, not labour. Also see this and this, and this on the GE hoax. See also this August 2011 CTJ article and this September 2012 study by the Urban-Brookings Institution.

• Inequality and tax justice. See our webpage on this topic  and these quotations and this special edition (2007) of Tax Justice Focus. See also this March 2009 book review pointer “The Spirit Level” and these remarkable graphs. See also this December 2006 study comparing social outcomes in high-tax Nordic countries with those in low-tax Anglo-American countries.

• Information Exchange. See our dedicated webpage.

• Inheritance taxes. For the Tax Research blog archive, click here; for an explanatory video, see here. See also this ITEP primer and Myths and Realities about the Estate Tax, U.S. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2013.

• Insider trading via secrecy jurisdictions / tax havens. A widespread problem, which we cover anedcotally in blogs covering telecommunications, here and here and here (and follow the links back.)

• Intermediaries. See our dedicated webpage. See also the OECD intermediaries project.

• International Accounting standards. See our Country by Country reporting page.

• International Tax Organisation (ITO). There is no such thing, but TJN supports the idea of some kind of international institution on global tax policy co-ordination, with developing countries properly represented. Frances Horner’s seminal 2001 ITO article is here; Vito Tanzi’s article is here.

• Inversion, corporate inversion. See this U.S. PIRG report from 2012.

• Ireland. See our October 2013 narrative report into how Ireland became a tax haven.

• Isle of Man. See the Tax Analysts report into IoM’s tax evasion potential. For the Tax Research blog archive, click here.

• Jersey. See our Oct 2013 narrative report on how Jersey became a tax haven. For the Tax Research archive, click here. See this 2007 Tax Analysts report on Jersey’s tax evasion potential here.

• Laffer Curve. See our blog links to stories about this discredited idea, and this from Citizens for Tax Justice. See also ITEP’s 2012 debunking of Laffer’s state-by-state U.S. analysis (also here, here and here). On ‘millionaire tax migration’ in the US, see this.

• Land Value Tax see this May 2010 edition of Tax Justice Focus. 

• Lebanon. See our Oct 2013 narrative report on how Lebanon became a tax haven.

• Lobbying.  See this July 2012 report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism into the City of London lobbying. See also This article in Tax Justice Focus. This June 2010 report from the Corporate Europe Observatory gives some Jersey-related specifics.

• London, City of London Corporation. See Britain, above. Also read Treasure Islands and associated blog; see The UK Gold Film. Also see this CRESC report from June 2011 (original here), and this July 2012 investigation of the UK financial sector’s lobbying operation. Also see a brief survey of the problem is illustrated in this August 2006 Red Pepper article. An IMF Working Paper also identified the UK as a tax haven: see here.

• Luxembourg. See our 2013 narrative report on how Luxembourg became a tax haven, and associated links.

• Map of the tax haven world. See our interactive map here. See another map here 

• Migration, effect of taxes on migration. See our discussion of a May 2012 NY Times article, and associated links and studies. Original here. See also Laffer Curve, above. On ‘millionaire tax migration’ in the US, see this.On ‘millionaire tax migration’ in the US, see this.

• Netherlands.  See the Tax Justice Netherlands site here, the SOMO site; and the Tax Research blog archive. See our 2013 narrative report on Netherlands here, and our page on tax treaties. See this short SOMO briefing paper on why NL is a tax haven. See this paper on treaty abuse via the Netherlands; This 2010 Bloomberg story explores Google’s use of the Netherlands for tax avoidance.

• Non-governmental organisations: see this Guide to Tax Work for NGOs
• No Accounting for Tax Havens –  An exploration of the impact of tax havens, from a British perspective. Written by the Association for Accountancy and Business Affairs (AABA). Feb 2002.
• OECD. This article, Lessons from the last war on tax havens, describes how a 1998-2002 OECD effort to tackle the problem was eviscerated. See also this March 2009 blog looking at how the past may be repeated, and this blog (also in March 2009) looking at TJN’s assessment of some OECD tax policies. This May 2009 briefing paper looks at the OECD and information exchange.
• Other Side of the Coin.  A report for the UK’s All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on corruption in Africa. March 2006.
• Outward Domestication. See an explanation in this June 2009 layman’s guide, Tricky Tax: Two tax avoidance schemes explained.

• Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. See Britain, above. See also our narrative reports on BVI, Jersey, Cayman.

• Oxfam Report (March 2009) estimating tax haven losses to developing countries. Here.
• Oxford Centre for Business Taxation and its critique of data produced by TJN and its allies: the original report, and TJN’s response, is here, with an update here and conference videos hammering out the issues available here .
• Pensions. For the Tax Research blog archive, click here.
• Plato Index currently being developed with Dr. Edmund Valpy Fitzgerald of Oxford University. See our TJN web section on the latest state of play.
• Politics and Accountable government. How taxation fosters more accountable government. See  this web section; this edition of our newsletter, and this paper from the Institute of Development Studies
• Price of Offshore.  This short TJN briefing paper in 2005 estimated global revenue losses from $11.5 trillion of offshore wealth.
• Private Equity. An interactive video; the Tax Research archive, click here. This TJN blogalso outlines some core concerns.
• Qualified Intermediary Program (US) see our April 2010 FATCA paper and Information Exchange page.
• Quotations. Click here.
• Redomiciliation. Another interactive video from Richard Murphy.
• Rents, Natural rents: see this Tax Justice Focus edition focusing on Land Value Taxes.
• Repatriation (under tax amnesties) – see this 2004 / 2009 U.S. example.
• Residence-based taxation, For ‘residence-based’ versus ‘source-based’ taxation, in particular as regards developing countries, see this briefing paper. See also our dedicatedweb page on tax treaties. See also ‘worldwide’ and ‘territorial’ taxation, below.
• Shirts off their backs.  This 2005 publication by Christian Aid warned that unless gaps in poorer countries’ revenues are plugged by responsible tax policies and international action to curb tax havens, the UN’s poverty reduction targets will be missed.  It estimated that poorer countries lose $500 billion a year in capital flight losses as a result of tax dodging.
• Singapore. See our Oct 2013 narrative report on how Singapore became a tax haven.
• Source- and Residence- based Taxation. A matter of fundamental importance, often overlooked, involving the different ways of taxing cross-border income. Capital-exporting rich countries prefer the OECD’s model more favourable to residence-based taxation; capital-poor developing countries prefer the UN’s model more favourable to source-based taxation. See TJN’s briefing paper exploring the issues.   See also this long TJN blog on the subject, Nov 2008.
• South African companies. See this 2007 ILRIG report describing historical tax strategies of some big South African companies. 
• Stolen Assets Recovery (StAR) Initiative, World Bank Report, 2007. See launch releaseand document 
• Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act co-sponsored by Senators Barack Obama (D), Norm Coleman (R) and Carl Levin (D) in February 2007. See the original bill here and our Nov 2008 bloglooking at the details.
• Switzerland. See our October 2013 narrative report on how Switzerland became a tax haven. See also this 2007 work by TaxAnalysts on Switzerland estimating how large the tax-evading assets in Switzerland are. See also our 2012 analysis of the Swiss “Rubik” tax deals with UK. 
  

• Tax Avoidance and compliance. From the Tax Research blog archive: for avoidance clickhere; for compliance click here.
• Tax Competition and Co-operation. See this TJN web section and this briefing paper on the international dimensions of tax competition. This paper by Professor Sol Picciotto discusses the issues and contains a useful history of the emergence of the problem. See also this special edition of Tax Justice Focus (2006) on tax competition and this October 2008 paper by Christensen and Gurtner.
• Tax cuts, cutting, supply side economics, see this report from Citizens for Tax Justice (and associated Links; this Washington Post story , and see “Laffer Curve,” above. This 2011 study by Piketty, Saez and Stantcheva looks at whether tax cuts stimulate productivity or rent-seeking (originals here and here). See also “incentives, tax incentives,” above.
• Tax data and statistcs See Data and Statistics, above.
• Tax Evasion. Amid the enormous amount of information, we would like to highlight this 2007 work by TaxAnalysts on  Jersey, on Guernsey, and on the Isle of Man.
• Tax Gap. Missing Billions: Feb 2008 TUC report on the UK Tax Gap, prepared by TJN’s Richard Murphy. For the Tax Research blog archive, click here. Also see Mind the Tax Gap. A report showing tax not paid by big  UK corporations , explaining why this happens. Published in 2006 and covering the period 2000 – 2004.
• Tax Haven Abuses: the Enablers, the Tools, and the Secrecy.  A report by the US Senate on the offshore world.

• Tax Havens. What is a tax haven? See this Oct 2013 page exploring the issues.  This 2007 TJN Briefing paper explores what a tax haven is.  Click here for IMF identifying UK and other places as OFCs.

• Tax Haven location of big U.S. and European companies. This blog points to research by the US Government Accountability Office and by the Tax Justice Network on the tax haven subsidiaries of big companies in a number of countries, notably banks. The Swiss magazine Hebdo added a study of Swiss companies in tax havens in June 2009.

• Tax Incidence, see Incidence.

• Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs). See Information Exchange, above, and this June 2009 briefing paper on information exchange.

• Tax Protests, protesters. This January 2010 blog addresses the issues, and provides several useful links.

• Tax treaties. See Double Tax Agreements, above.

• Territorial Taxation – See this January 2013 summary of the issues by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) – original here. See Mike Mcintyre’s collection of articles explaining why the US should not adopt territorial taxation, and CTJ’s Fact Sheet rejecting territorial taxation. See This Feb 2011 Tax Research youtube presentation, George Monbiot’s 2011 Guardian article on proposed changes to UK tax law, and Citizens for Tax Justice in May 2011 with an overview of proposals to change the U.S.’ predominantly residence-based system to a more ‘territorial’ one.

• Total tax contribution. See this article in The American Prospect, and a November 2010 example of how it is used.

• Transfer and trade pricing and mispricing. See TJN’s corporate tax avoidance page. See also Unitary Taxation, below.

• Treuhand. See this 2010 blog , and assorted links. See also trusts, below.

• Trusts. For an overview of how trusts are used to create secrecy and a shield from tax, click this July 2009 TJN primer. See also this blog on Project Wickenby. For the Tax Research blog archive, click here. See also Treuhand, above.

• United Arab Emirates. See Dubai.

• United Kingdom. See our Oct 2013 narrative report on the United Kingdom. See also this report into the UK’s Overseas Territories and developing countries, June 2013 (original here.) Tax Gap, above.

• Unitary Taxation and profit apportionment (or formulary apportionment.) Also see combined reporting (with formulary apportionment.) See our TJN webpage, and Sol Picciotto’s 2013 report Towards Unitary Taxation (short summary here; full report here.)

• United Nations Tax Committee a presentation  by TJN’S David Spencer on how developing nations can mobilise domestic resources. Sept 2007. See also this blog about its October 2008 meeting.

• United States. See our 2013 narrative report on how the United States became a tax havens. See also a wealth of information from Citizens for Tax Justice, and its sister organisation, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP,) here. Also see  US-based TaxAnalysts. Also see TJN-USA.

• Uruguay. See our Oct 2013 narrative report on how Uruguay became a tax haven.