“Are we Swiss all criminals?” The poster asks. No. But many Swiss bankers are.
Switzerland, it seems, has rejected the OECD’s new project on automatic information exchange, out of hand.
Continue reading “Swiss reject OECD’s new transparency project”
We have finally completed the full upload to our website of all our past editions of Tax Justice Focus, our inaugural newsletter.
Please take a look.
TJN is pleased to publish a new briefing paper looking at the implications for developing countries of the OECD’s widely referenced Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project, which is designed to find ways to tackle the deficiencies in the international tax system. It is available in English and Spanish. Continue reading “New TJN briefing: OECD’s BEPS project for developing countries”
The U.S.-based Tax Analysts has just published a fascinating article with the bland title Should Donor Countries Push Tax Reform? The answer, we think, is generally ‘yes’ – though it depends, of course, what we mean by ‘reform.’ The article notes: Continue reading “Should donors boost aid to Pakistan if it won’t tax its élites?”
France 2 explores the report yesterday
From Le Monde:
“The corporations in the CAC 40 [France’s benchmark stock exchange index of the 40 biggest French stocks] have over 1,500 affiliates in tax havens, according to a study published on Thursday by the journal Project . . . cross-checked with authoritative studies data (the work of the Tax Justice Network Association in particular) and the most recent list of tax havens of the [OECD] Global Forum on Transparency.”
. . .
Its authors estimate that, according to their research, ‘their presence in tax havens has not diminished since 2009.”
Read the study, conducted in partnership with the plateforme paradis fiscaux et judiciaries here (in French.) See further coverage in L’expansion, Mediapart, and on France 2 television.
Hat tip: Mathilde Dupré.
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. Continue reading “BVI tax haven floats 20 years in prison for whistleblowers”
PRESS RELEASE
New OECD report on automatic information exchange: will developing countries be left out?
Continue reading “TJN responds to new OECD report on automatic information exchange”
British prime minister David Cameron has announced that money is no object when it comes to tackling the floods now inundating towns to the west of London. Continue reading “Your tax cuts at work”
That headline is at least what this contributor would have you take away from his latest column in Forbes. And of course the article speculates that it’s all about tax, tax, and tax Continue reading “Number Renouncing US Citizenship rose 221% in 2013, in tax panic”
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
From Aditya Chakrabortty in the UK’s Guardian newspaper: some statistics that are classics of the “Finance Curse” analysis – where an oversized financial centre begins to weigh on the rest of an economy, rather than to support it. Continue reading “London, the Great Sucking Sound, and the Finance Curse”
One of the many devious ploys used by the Swiss financial centre to protect its often illicit gains is to insist on ‘reciprocity’ in the exchange of information. Along the lines of: “If we’re going to share information with Nigeria, then they should share the same kind of information with us!” Continue reading “Why should tax havens insist on ‘reciprocity’ from poor countries?”
From the Equality Trust:
How Inequality Became THE Issue – Five Years of The Spirit Level
Continue reading “How Inequality Became THE Issue – Five Years of The Spirit Level”
From Christian Aid:
“Two-thirds (66 per cent) of the CEOs of large UK firms surveyed agreed that ‘multinationals should be required to publish the revenues, profits and taxes paid for each territory where they operate’.
PwC’s research, which involved 1,344 interviews with CEOs in 68 countries, also found that across all the CEOs surveyed, 59 per cent supported the requirement.”
Which has been a core TJN campaign for the last decade or so. We are delighted to have made so much headway. But there’s still a long way to go.
TJN has previously challenged the prevailing discourse on corruption; and we have taken particular issue with Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which looks at corruption through a highly distorted prism. Continue reading “Flipping the corruption myth”
February 4, 2014
Today’s edition of the Jersey Evening Post leads with an article headed ‘Official: Why food costs so much more in Jersey’. Food prices, according to a new study, are one third higher than in the UK. Worse, once taxes and duties are excluded, the difference rises to 50 percent. Continue reading “Why does food cost so much in Jersey?”
Reuters reports:
“Fiat said on Wednesday it would register the holding of its newly created Fiat Chrysler Automobiles group in the Netherlands and set its tax domicile in Britain Continue reading “Fiat moves tax domicile to tax haven UK – but will it create jobs?”
From the-best-of-both-worlds.com
This zombie just won’t die. From BusinessWeek:
“Solving the dispute over undeclared Italian funds with Swiss banks will be on the agenda today Continue reading “Swiss subterfuges continuing to fool Italian politicians?”
Image from http://www.dr.dk/nyheder/
We received this email yesterday about opposition in Denmark to a deal to sell a big stake in the state energy company Dong to Goldman Sachs, raising large civil society pushback, Continue reading “Goldman tax dodge fury shakes Denmark government”
The British Virgin Islands (BVI) are back in the news. Last week the islands featured at the cent
re of a huge story about corruption in China. This week’s story concerns UNCTAD’s latest estimates of foreign direct investment flows through companies registered in the BVI. As Reuters reports: Continue reading “BVI got more foreign investment in 2013 than Brazil and India combined – UN”
Dear Prime Minister
The Huffington Post reports you saying:
“Frankly I don’t like any taxes.” Continue reading “Open letter to UK Prime Minister”
From the excellent weekly newsletter of the U.S. inequality-watching organisation Too Much:
“Simon Smiles, the global chief investment officer at the Swiss bank UBS, usually only ladles out advice to investors worth at least $30 million. But Smiles has just done an interview that shares a bit of what he’s telling his clients. Increasing “international pressure on banking secrecy and tax avoidance,” says Smiles, is complicating life for the ultra rich, and they’re searching for simple “certainties.” The advice from Smiles: Invest in “food, water, and death.” Continue reading “UBS: invest in food, water and death”