Wall Street banks trade perhaps half of their derivatives activities through foreign banks. For them, foreign jurisdictions are an obvious escape route from U.S. financial regulations. Last June, Marcus Stanley of Americans for Financial Reform wrote: Continue reading “Letter on derivatives: stop the offshore race to the bottom”
Global Witness, the indefatigable investigators of corruption, tax havens and general monkey business, have been awarded two prestigious awards. They note: Continue reading “Global Witness wins TED prize; Skoll awards”
Bitcoin: promotional image
We have for many years been describing Delaware as an offshore secrecy jurisdiction (or tax haven) inside the United States. It is not so much tax, as secrecy and laissez-faire corporate governance (and ugly related matters) that are the tiny state’s core offerings, along with all that judicial experience that comes with being the ask-no-questions incorporation capital of the United States. Read more about Delaware and the U.S. as secrecy jurisdictions, here. Continue reading “Bitcoin scandal: the role of Delaware secrecy”
Following our widely read analysis on Russia, Ukraine, the City of London, and national security – here’s another must-read article in the New York Times from the same author, Ben Judah, who wrote the original one we cited.
Continue reading “London spin machine tries to rebut NYT “City betrays US” thesis”
In a welcome step, the International Monetary Fund has announced it will be researching the consequences of existing and proposed changes to corporation tax regimes for lower income “source” countries. Continue reading “IMF launches consultation on tax ‘spillover’”
We have written at length about the European Union Savings Tax Directive (EUSD), a scheme involving 43 European countries and other participating jurisdictions to tackle tax evasion by exchanging appropriate information automatically with each other. Continue reading “European Union Savings Tax Directive Amendments – coming very soon?”
From the Exposed Campaign: a powerful two-minute video, which speaks for itself. Continue reading “Grace’s story: a schoolgirl and a corrupted world”
Back in 1974 William Cary wrote a widely cited article about Delaware in the Yale Law Review, where he stated:
“a pygmy among the 50 states prescribes, interprets, and indeed denigrates national corporate policy as an incentive to encourage incorporation within its borders, thereby increasing its revenue.”
Today, the problem is larger, as Delaware continues what a more recent observer calls “a political tradition of self-serving venality.” Continue reading “Renting Judges for Secret Rulings in Delaware”
Following our blog yesterday looking at the national security implications of Europe’s tax haven mentality, we have been drawn to this post from 2008, looking at the West’s options in dealing with Russian aggression in Georgia at the time. It lists several interesting possibilities, but we found this one most interesting:
Cry “Havoc” and Let Slip the Dogs of Accounting. Continue reading “Ukraine: how to put pressure on Russia”
From the UK-based Centre for Health and the Public Interest:
“Those investigating the persistence of poverty in developing countries and those struggling to sustain high quality health care in the UK have more in common than we think.”
Why? Well, read on.
We recently briefly blogged an IMF report describing how economic inequality leads to slower economic growth.
Now, in the Financial Times, a fascinating comment article by the IMF Deputy Research Director Jonathan Ostry, whose subtitle is “A more redistributive tax system appears to lead to higher growth.”
It’s a big study, and it has two striking results. Continue reading “Tax justice is good for growth: IMF”
Photo: kremlin.ru, creative commons
If there’s one story you read today make it this one, from Politico Magazine. It’s triggered by the crisis in Ukraine, but it’s been a long time coming.
The point of this short story is clear: Western leaders are waking up to the fact that Russia no longer fears or even respects them. Why? Well:
“Russia thinks the West is no longer a crusading alliance. Russia thinks the West is now all about the money.” Continue reading “Why Russia no longer fears the West. It’s the offshore, stupid”
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”
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””
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”
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”
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”
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]From tax advisers Taxand, who have just conducted a global survey of corporate Chief Finance Officers (CFOs):
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”
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”
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”
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 domestic product.” Continue reading “Tax havens and corruption: Lebedev and TJN in the NYT”