Anonymous UK company owned Viktor Yanukovych’s presidential palace compound

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Ukrainians queue to see their ex-President’s private residence, 23 February 2014. Photo credit: Aleksandr Andreiko, Creative Commons

From Global Witness – see also Daily Mail and The Independent.

Update: see also this important blog, looking at the national security implications of all this corruption.

Anonymous UK company owned Viktor Yanukovych’s presidential palace compound

1 March 2014

The private residence of the newly-toppled president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, has come to be seen as a monument to decadence.[i]  When Yanukovych fled, the security personnel around the palace also left, and hundreds of ordinary Ukrainians were, for the first time, able to see the extravagance of the place for themselves.  Continue reading “Anonymous UK company owned Viktor Yanukovych’s presidential palace compound” →

TJN on Switzerland: “Shallow, ignorant and short-sighted”

We have just received the following email from Concerned American, resident in Switzerland.  Her/his wrath is directed at our director, John Christensen, who was interviewed on CNN yesterday and – amongst other things – discussed the latest report on Swiss banks from the US Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations. Continue reading “TJN on Switzerland: “Shallow, ignorant and short-sighted”” →

European MEP calls for hearing on Swiss banking scandals

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Ana Gomes

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 support this letter, and we urge others to do so too. Her letter reads as follows; the original is here.

 

Continue reading “European MEP calls for hearing on Swiss banking scandals” →

Tax justice and modern-day colonialism: Areva vs. Niger

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From Reuters, an excellent Special Report:

“Niger has become the world’s fourth-largest producer of the ore after Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia. But uranium has not enriched Niger. The former French colony remains one of the poorest countries on earth.” Continue reading “Tax justice and modern-day colonialism: Areva vs. Niger” →

Not quite anywhere: shadow banking and the offshore system

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photojojo.com, creative commons

A useful reminder about shadow banking from Anastasia Nesvetailova, Reader in International Political Economy at City University London. It begins like this:

“It takes me about two hours to assemble a team of finance geeks and lawyers to devise a product or a transaction that would bypass any new rule or regulation coming our way,” said a senior French banker to me Continue reading “Not quite anywhere: shadow banking and the offshore system” →

Survey: the corporate tax debate is biting the corporations

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]From tax advisers Taxand, who have just conducted a global survey of corporate Chief Finance Officers (CFOs):

Income inequality leads to slower economic growth – IMF study

From Reuters:

“Income inequality can lead to slower or less sustainable economic growth, while redistribution of income, when measured, does not hurt and can even help an economy, IMF staff found in a research study released on Wednesday.” Continue reading “Income inequality leads to slower economic growth – IMF study” →

Read our lips: Ireland is a tax haven. Part xxvi

From Unite, Ireland (via Tax Research), a nice little graph showing effective corporate tax rates in Europe. We haven’t seen this one before. Ireland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg – the Eurozone’s three most notorious tax havens – are the clear abusers.  Continue reading “Read our lips: Ireland is a tax haven. Part xxvi” →

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 about those initiatives themselves. Here are some highlights. Continue reading “The Credit Suisse scandal: echoes of Too Big To Jail” →

Tax havens and corruption: Lebedev and TJN in the NYT

LebedevFrom 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 domestic product.” Continue reading “Tax havens and corruption: Lebedev and TJN in the NYT” →

Credit Suisse: industrial scale corruption in Switzerland

SenateFrom 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. Continue reading “Credit Suisse: industrial scale corruption in Switzerland” →

Guernsey milking and the offshore stock exchange

The International Advisor magazine has just reported:

“Guernsey chief minister Peter Harwood resigned today, in the wake of publication of a critical article in the current issue of the British satirical and investigative publication, Private Eye.”

This refers to an excellent report entitled “Milking in Guernsey” by The Eye into the scandal-plagued Guernsey-based Channel Islands Stock Exchange (CISX,) Continue reading “Guernsey milking and the offshore stock exchange” →

Fashion retailer’s tax dodges boost European inequality

ZaraBloomberg tax star Jesse Drucker has another fine article out about the Spanish retailer Inditex, the parent of high street retail giant Zara. We would urge you to read it. Among many other things, it contains:

“In the past five years, Inditex has shifted almost $2 billion in profits to a tiny unit operating in the Netherlands and Switzerland, records show. Although that subsidiary employs only about 0.1 percent of Inditex’s worldwide workforce, it reported almost 20 percent of the parent company’s global profits last year.” Continue reading “Fashion retailer’s tax dodges boost European inequality” →

Report: the Sorry State of U.S. Corporate Taxes, 2008-2012

CTJA major new report from the indefatigable Citizens for Tax Justice in the U.S.

The Executive Summary begins:

The Sorry State of Corporate Taxes

What Fortune 500 Firms Pay (or Don’t Pay) in the USA And What they Pay Abroad — 2008 to 2012 Continue reading “Report: the Sorry State of U.S. Corporate Taxes, 2008-2012” →

Ernst & Young: why Dubai’s first conflict gold audit was silenced

City of GoldWe have remarked before on Dubai’s role as a particularly egregious and recalcitrant secrecy jurisdiction, harbouring some of the world’s worst scoundrels and their money: the likes of Indian master criminal Dawood Ibrahim, the arms dealer Viktor Bout, and many others. Dubai ranks 16th in our Financial Secrecy Index overall, and a pretty mucky 19th place (out of 82) when measured purely on its secrecy score. Read the whole fascinating story about how Dubai became a secrecy jurisdiction here.

Now, from Global Witness, a tale to confirm our concerns:

Revealed: Why Dubai’s first conflict gold audit never saw the light of day

25th February 2014

According to a former partner at Ernst & Young, the global accountancy firm turned a blind eye when a report of major audit failures at Dubai’s biggest gold refinery went unpublished. A Global Witness report released today, City of Gold,considers the implications.

Continue reading “Ernst & Young: why Dubai’s first conflict gold audit was silenced” →

Local innovators lament the City of London’s failure

financeraceCross-posted from the Treasure Islands blog:

From the Financial Times, a short video entitled Bright Future for British Engineering? It looks at some promising stuff going on in the Advanced Manufacturing Research Park, a collaboration between the University of Sheffield and Boeing Corp.

The video is notable not just for the fact that the t-word is absent. Continue reading “Local innovators lament the City of London’s failure” →

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 parliamentary vote to create public registries of companies and trusts in the EU.

Now, from Tax-News.com:

“European Union Tax Commissioner Algirdas Šemeta has confirmed that an agreement on plans to revise the European Union (EU) Savings Tax Directive is expected in March. Continue reading “Automatic info exchange: will Europe’s spoilers soon play ball?” →

The Trans Pacific Partnership, economists, bozos and bamboozlement

We’ve been sent a nice cartoon about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement – which, while not an issue we’re working on directly, is interesting. Continue reading “The Trans Pacific Partnership, economists, bozos and bamboozlement” →

New report: Growth in Africa fails to curb soaring inequality

Africa InequalityFrom TJN-Africa and Christian Aid:

February 24 2014 

GROWTH IN AFRICA FAILS TO CURB SOARING INEQUALITY, SAYS NEW REPORT

Unprecedented economic growth in a number of African countries is going hand in hand with soaring inequality, which national tax systems are failing to address, according to a new report.

Continue reading “New report: Growth in Africa fails to curb soaring inequality” →

The Fair Tax Mark – coming to the UK

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Richard Murphy and Ethical Consumer today launch the Fair Tax Mark:

“The world’s first independent accreditation scheme to address the issue of responsible tax.”

Continue reading “The Fair Tax Mark – coming to the UK” →

European Parliament votes to end anonymous shell companies

image001From Global Witness, via email:

European Parliament votes to end anonymous shell companies  Continue reading “European Parliament votes to end anonymous shell companies” →

The February Taxcast: Bahamas and more

In the February 2014 Taxcast: Are European tax havens getting ‘illegal state subsidies’? The European Union’s Competition Commissioner thinks they may be. Are the world’s tax havens really going to become more transparent? We analyse the OECD’s automatic information exchange proposal, warts and all. And the tax haven of the Bahamas is broke – the government’s solution? Tax the poor! Continue reading “The February Taxcast: Bahamas and more” →