Page 27 – Tax Justice Network

Lessons learned from organising our first virtual conference

In December 2019, the Tax Justice Network held its first virtual conference, bringing together over 150 people from around the world from Portland to Sydney. Offices, living rooms and libraries on different continents were connected into one virtual space where speakers from the OECD, G24, IMF, World Bank and ICRICT discussed leading proposals to reform the international tax system.

Following the conference, we have seen increased recognition of the necessity for such a platform, particularly as governments warn against holding large meetings amidst the Coronavirus outbreak, and organisations begin to take seriously their responsibility to reduce their carbon footprint in order to help tackle the climate crisis.

Our feedback paper and this blog detail some of the findings from our conference, including how to approach planning, the technology used and lessons learned. We hope that this will help other organisations to get to grips with the tools and knowledge needed to move virtual conferences into the mainstream.

Why host a virtual conference?

At the Tax Justice Network, we host a large-scale in-person conference once a year, bringing together hundreds of people to debate key issues on the tax justice agenda. While we recognise that this type of organising is necessary, in-person conferences are hugely time-intensive for our small team and have high overhead costs, leaving us with limited capacity to host essential debates and discussions.

On top of this, we are increasingly concerned about the climate crisis. While it ultimately falls to governments to respond in line with the scale of the calamity that we face, we are committed to making urgent efforts to reduce our carbon footprint. Following the conference, we published a blog estimating the carbon emissions averted by moving our conference online.

Another huge benefit of going virtual is the ability to increase the participation of both delegates and speakers. Removing expensive flights and hotels costs, as well the large time commitment needed to travel, meant that speakers could allocate just a couple of hours in their diary as opposed to an entire week. The demographics of delegates can also change dramatically when a conference is more accessible, and as virtual platforms are scalable, capacity limitations are removed, thereby opening the conference to a much wider global audience.

Below we provide some lessons learned for successful virtual conference planning.

Logistics and planning

Deciding on the date and timing of our conference was a challenge as we needed to be inclusive and give our audience the opportunity to connect from across the world. We settled on the time frame of 13:00 – 17:30 GMT, which meant an early start of 5.30am for participants on the US West coast, while some participants from Australia stayed up until 2.30am to join the conference.

Our session structure was driven by the content, which we split into two halves – the technical aspects of international tax reforms, followed by a wider debate on the political landscape. We opened both halves with keynotes and presentations to set the context of the discussion, followed by panel debates on each topic.

We had around seven weeks to plan our conference, as we wanted to fit in around international events and timelines for tax reforms. This was tight, especially given that it was our first time organising a virtual event, but it proved to be achievable for organising a one-day conference. We used Airtable, Zoom meetings and Slack for the bulk of our virtual planning.

Technology

After trialling many different platforms, we opted for a low-cost combination of Zoom conference call software to host the panel discussions, which were then streamed through OBS: Open Broadcaster Software to the Crowdcast platform.

This setup combined reliability and high-quality calls for the presentations and discussions with the user-friendly interface of the Crowdcast platform, which gives audience members the ability to setup a profile, chat, ask and upvote questions and navigate easily between conference sessions. Feedback on the technology was excellent, and almost all audience members were able to connect and view the conference without any issues – some even noted that they were able to see and hear the content more clearly than if they were at an in-person conference.

Whichever platform you choose, we found that testing the platform with each speaker in advance was essential for a smooth operation on the day, particularly as we had quite large panels and sessions that ran back-to-back, with just 5 or 10 minutes to gather everyone together in the ‘virtual green room’ beforehand. We had all speakers test microphones, webcams, internet connections and presentation sharing in advance of the conference, which was invaluable and meant that all of the speakers were prepared and on time for their sessions.

Session formats and hosting

Working within our limited time window of five hours, which allowed most parts of the globe to connect for at least some of the live conference (sorry Australia!), we broke our content down into three sessions – the opening keynote, a technical panel discussion, and a broader political keynote and discussion.

The host, our CEO Alex Cobham, opened the conference and advised participants in each session on the format and discussions ahead. The feedback on the sessions structure was generally positive, though the first session ran over slightly. To tackle this in future we will opt for briefer presentation sessions where possible so as to allow adequate time for Q&A, separate to panel discussions. The Crowdcast platform can be used to invite audience members on screen to pose questions to the presenter.

Improving networking channels

One commonly stated downside to virtual conferences is the lack of networking opportunities that come from hallway conversations at in-person conferences. To go some way towards addressing this challenge we used Slack channels to share materials with delegates in advance of the conference, with the intention of fostering discussions between staff and recipients and increasing the representation of ideas.

The channels were not used as fully as we had hoped, which we put down to our not dedicating enough resources to this in advance, and not promoting this as often as we should have to foster discussion. This is one area we will be investing further resources in next time around, with more engaging content such as Q&A sessions with speakers to enable debate beforehand.

Other feedback and considerations

There was a consensus that we need to work harder to be more inclusive and represent all parties in the debate, and that we should partner with organisations that are often under-represented in international discussions, particularly those in the global south. In future conferences, we will secure key speakers for the debate earlier in the process, while also looking for ways to support audience members to access stable internet connections to participate in the debates.

What we would do differently next time

Finally, a few things we would do differently next time:

Get more team members to moderate and engage on the Slack channels, host discussions and promote more widely
Consider other networking tools on the market
Look at alternative session formats – keeping them smaller where possible
Partner with other organisations or ask others to lead panels – particular those in the global south – and secure a wider range of speakers

Read the full paper here, view the conference material here, or get in touch if you would like to share feedback or ideas at: [email protected].

Slander and failed advertising campaigns: how tax haven officials responded to the Financial Secrecy Index 2020

This year’s edition of the Financial Secrecy Index 2020 – our biennial ranking of the world’s biggest supplies of financial secrecy – has received more news coverage and global support than any previous editions of the index. With over 700 news articles and broadcast pieces published on the index in the past two weeks across 80 countries, it is clear that tackling financial secrecy has become an important issue to people around the world. More people are recognising the harmful impact rampant tax abuse by the ultra-rich and powerful has on their lives and want their governments to do something about it.

But perhaps, one of the best indicators of the success of the Financial Secrecy Index is the increasing hostility it receives from representatives of secrecy jurisdictions ranking high on the index. The first edition of the Financial Secrecy Index was published in 2009 so we at the Tax Justice Network have become familiar with the boilerplate responses from secrecy jurisdictions to our research. However, this year’s responses have been particularly aggressive: Luxembourg’s Finance Ministry called the index “misleading, if not often outright false”. We have been accused of making assumptions “without providing enough clear and credible evidence to support [our] analysis.” Cayman’s Ministry of Financial Services has said “TJN’s methodology remains flawed”. The UK’s Financial Secretary to the Treasury has said our research is “bogus”, except for the parts that criticise the legacy of the opposition party.

The most aggressive and coordinated attack on the Financial Secrecy Index, however, has unsurprisingly come from the Cayman government and Cayman Finance (the association of the financial services industry of the Cayman Islands). On the same day that our Financial Secrecy Index 2020 went live and ranked the British Overseas Territory, Cayman as the world’s biggest supplier of financial secrecy, the EU blacklisted Cayman as a non-cooperative jurisdiction. These two developments without a doubt have raised serious concerns for the territory and more broadly the rest of the UK’s network of secrecy jurisdictions (the UK spider’s web), particularly in this post-Brexit era.

After publishing a statement saying “TJN purposefully uses outdated, inaccurate and irrelevant information to manipulate the results of its report”, Cayman Finance then chased journalists who had published articles about the index to persuade them of the supposed inaccuracy of our research, and when that failed to yield success, resorted to promoting their tweets about the index.

As before, however, the attacks and responses have not identified any actual inaccuracies in the research or the calculations behind the index, and most are in the form of sweeping accusations. But in light of the coordinated efforts we’ve seen this year to target journalists and our Twitter followers with misinformation, and to misdirect scrutiny away from secrecy jurisdictions, we’ve prepared this blog to debunk some of the common claims used by secrecy jurisdictions to excuse their ranking on the index.

Claim 1: The Financial Secrecy Index unfairly targets or penalises jurisdictions with “successful” financial service industries.

The Financial Secrecy Index ranks countries not on how secretive their financial laws are, but on how much financial secrecy they supply to non-residents outside of the country looking to hide their finances from the rule of law. This is done by grading each country’s legal and financial system with a secrecy score out of 100 where a zero out of 100 is full transparency and a 100 out of 100 is full secrecy. The country’s secrecy score is then combined with the volume of financial activity conducted in the country by non-residents to calculate how much financial secrecy is supplied to the world by the country.

This means a highly secretive jurisdiction that provides little to no financial services to non-residents, like Samoa (ranked 86th), will rank below a moderately secretive jurisdiction that is a major world player, like Japan (ranked 7th). The point is that a highly secretive jurisdiction used by no one, does less damage than a moderately secretive jurisdiction used by many people around the world.

Secrecy jurisdictions often twist this analysis on its head, claiming they are being treated unfairly for “successfully” attracting money from non-residents. Because they can sometimes have lower secrecy scores than some of the jurisdictions which they rank above, they claim the index purposefully ignores more secretive jurisdictions and targets jurisdictions with bigger financial services industries. Cayman Finance made this claim in their statement, saying “the TJN’s weighting system penalises countries with successful financial services industries.” The Cayman government then repeated this claim verbatim in subsequent responses.

The UK’s Financial Secretary to the Treasury similarly argued that the reason the UK ranks so high on the index despite having a lower secrecy score than countries like Brunei and Liberia is due to a “fudge factor”. He argues, “In its list of 133 jurisdictions, we [the UK] supposedly come 12th in terms of offensiveness, yet near the bottom we see Brunei, Vanuatu and Liberia. Is anyone seriously suggesting that this country is a less robust and effectively transparent tax jurisdiction than those?”

These claims miss the central purpose of the Financial Secrecy Index’s ranking of countries by their supply of financial secrecy as opposed to the secrecy of their financial laws: All countries have a responsibility to safeguard against financial secrecy. The more financial activity a country seeks to pull in from other countries’ residents, the greater the responsibility that country has to make sure its financial sector is not abused by people to evade or avoid tax in other countries or to launder money they’ve obtained elsewhere through illegal means.

To illustrate the point, imagine if Samoa, which is ranked 86^th and has a secrecy score of 75, and Luxembourg, which is ranked 6th and has a secrecy score of 55, became fully transparent. Which country’s change in secrecy would make a much bigger impact on the world? Hint: only one of these countries has had a global financial scandal named after them.

And anyway, if Luxembourg actually becomes fully transparent, it would get a secrecy score of zero, which would rank it at the bottom of our index, no matter how big its financial centre is. So the size of a financial centre is neither good nor bad, but when combined with the secrecy score, its level of responsibility for illicit financial flows and other global ills is well reflected.We want to see reforms in the big financial centres like Switzerland, Cayman, the US, Luxembourg, Singapore and Hong Kong: only if they became more transparent, there would be a significant impact in the fight against crime and illicit financial flows.

To answer the UK’s Financial Secretary to the Treasury directly: no, we are not ‘suggesting’ that the UK is less transparent than Vanuatu. In fact, the objectively verifiable criteria of the secrecy score provide powerful evidence that the UK is more transparent than Vanuatu – on which, well done. But the UK’s global importance means that its moderate secrecy poses a much, much higher risk to the world of facilitating tax abuse and other corruption. We would welcome improvements in Vanuatu’s secrecy; but the UK’s scale of activity brings with it great responsibility. And that is why the UK’s backsliding has seen it move up to 12^th in the index, as a jurisdiction of very substantial concern.

Claim 2: We are complying with global standards on transparency.

Secrecy jurisdictions often claim in response to their ranking on the Financial Secrecy Index that they are complying with, or have committed to comply in the future with, international standards on transparency and are therefore transparent. In some cases, secrecy jurisdictions claim that the index does not take these standards into account. In other cases, secrecy jurisdictions, claim that their compliance with international standards is proof that the Financial Secrecy Index does not provide an accurate assessment.

For example, Luxembourg has claimed “…the analysis (and concomitant ranking) fails to take into account the fact that regulators and institutions of the Luxembourg financial centre are applying all the relevant EU and international standards. Luxembourg…has implemented and put in practice all applicable OECD and EU rules”. Gibraltar has similarly argued that it “complies with all global standards” and is “at the forefront of transparency and global standards in this field”. The Cayman government argued, “The Cayman Islands’s standards of transparency are based upon recognised global standards. Unfortunately, the TJN’s methodology remains flawed, as does their definition of regulatory standards, which are not recognised by any global standard setting body.”

The Financial Secrecy Index grades each country’s financial and legal system against 100 datapoints, which includes compliance with various international standards, such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) anti-money laundering recommendations, the Common Reporting Standard and the OECD’s Global Forum standard on access to banking information. However, many existing international standards are widely recognised as being far too weak to effectively safeguard against financial secrecy. As a result, complying with international standards is often not enough to ensure effective financial transparency in practice. The is one of the primary reasons why the OECD has been working recently on proposals to reform the century-old international tax system in place today.

Under current international tax rules, multinational corporations have been able to dodge an estimated $500 billion in tax every year and offshore jurisdictions have accrued huge concentrations of untaxed private wealth. So we often set a higher bar that reflects what truly effective safeguarding against financial secrecy looks like in practice.

Our higher standards have, over the years, helped drive better international standards. We have, since our founding, advocated a number of positions – such as automatic information exchange, country-by-country reporting, and beneficial ownership transparency – which were all called unrealistic and utopian when we first proposed them. Nonetheless, all of these have become emerging international standards in the past few years. Moreover, many countries and corporations are now voluntarily complying with our more robust transparency standards that have not become international standards yet, such as online public access to registries of beneficial ownership and local filing of country by country reports whenever the country cannot obtain it via automatic exchange of information.

Claim 3: Misquoting what the Financial Secrecy Index scores the country on

The Financial Secrecy Index evaluates countries against 20 indicators, each consisting of several sub-indicators, totaling over a hundred datapoints against which each country is scored. This data is made public on the Financial Secrecy Index website and is available to download in excel files. This data is also sent to each ranked jurisdiction ahead of the launch of the index to provide jurisdictions the opportunity to identify any inaccuracies in our research in advance.

Nonetheless, some secrecy jurisdiction do not engage with this data at all and falsely claim that the index has evaluated them on something completely different. In some cases, secrecy jurisdictions misquote our press releases. More often, secrecy jurisdictions quote the historical summaries that we provide on some countries’ financial sectors alongside our evaluation and ranking of those countries’ financial and legal system. These historical summaries are independent pieces which are not factored into countries’ ranking – they’re purely additional information we provide on the history and of the secrecy jurisdiction. Perplexingly, some secrecy jurisdictions ignore the index’s latest evaluation of their financial and legal systems and instead lambast our summary of their history for being “outdated”.

For example, Cayman Finance claims that both the 2018 and 2020 edition of the Financial Secrecy Index “cite a report by the U.S. Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation to support an allegation that U.S. corporate “foreign earnings and profits” are shifted out of other countries and into Cayman. The report was published in 2010, making the information within it eight years old when TJN included it within the 2018 FSI and ten years old.” Neither edition of the index used this report to evaluate Cayman’s ranking. The report was mentioned in the historical summary we provided in 2018 on the jurisdiction, and since history doesn’t change, the report was mentioned in the historical summary in 2020.

A similar claim is made by Luxembourg in a Delano article on the Financial Secrecy Index 2020:

Luxembourg’s finance ministry said in a statement to Delano on 19 February: “…The research methodology, for its part, on which it is based seems to be flawed, as it fails to reflect the major progress that has been achieved over the last 5 years in the field of transparency in Luxembourg.”
Indeed, the TJN report cited Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg’s prime minister until 2013, 13 times, but only mentioned Xavier Bettel, PM for the past 6 years, twice.

All of these references to prime ministers were made in our historical summary of Luxembourg. These references have nothing to do with Luxembourg’s ranking on the index. Not surprisingly, Luxembourg’s response to the index did not mention any of the data on which the country was actually evaluated and ranked.

One last claim made by the Cayman government, and on the face of it more specific, is this: “The Cayman Islands does not permit shell companies, bearer shares or anonymously numbered bank accounts that conceal ownership.” But this is again, a misdirection. The index does not claim that Cayman permits bearer shares or anonymous numbered bank accounts: see points 172, 157 and 158 on our interactive database (click on Cayman). Our secrecy scores are made up of 20 indicators, so achieving low secrecy in one doesn’t make the whole jurisdiction secrecy-free. And while there is no precise definition of a ‘shell company’, this is typically taken to relate to anonymous ownership and the Index shows that Cayman has much to improve in respect of legal ownership registration for companies.

Miscellaneous claims

Cayman Finance: “The TJN’s assessment criteria are geared toward countries with direct taxation systems. Our public revenue is collected upon transactions, principally on goods, but the TJN’s methodology doesn’t account for this. For example, one of its Key Financial Secrecy Indicators (KFSI) isn’t applied to jurisdictions with indirect taxation, and so TJN arbitrarily ascribes a full secrecy score to Cayman”

The index assesses more than 130 jurisdictions and is definitely not ‘geared’ specifically towards countries with direct taxation systems. However, a lack of direct taxation is relevant for the index, mostly because it all but guarantees lower transparency. Countries that don’t have income taxes have little interest in information to keep track of taxpayers.

Like United Arab Emirates, Bahamas, and other jurisdictions we assess, Cayman does not have a direct taxation system which means Cayman does not collect information on taxpayers like other countries do. For instance, Cayman doesn’t issue tax identification numbers (TINs) which is what most countries use to identify a specific taxpayer or company. This affects Cayman’s ability to fight against corruption and money laundering.

The absence of direct income tax is also reflected in the key indicator (KFSI9) that measures the publication of cross-border unilateral tax rulings. Since Cayman does not have a direct income tax, it does not issue unilateral tax rulings, which can be abused as a form of financial secrecy (and the LuxLeaks scandal revealed how extremely harmful these rulings can be).. Cayman claims that since it does not issue unilateral tax rulings, it should not be scored as fully secretive on this indicator. However, Cayman not issuing unilateral tax rulings does not mean that Cayman has opted for transparency, but rather that it is offering a more simple form of secrecy: the outright refusal to collect any tax information.

What is more, with the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS) for automatic exchange of information (See Annex A) Cayman has taken the “voluntary secrecy” option. That means that while Cayman does send information to other countries about many non-residents, it declines to receive information from abroad on its own residents. This gives a strong secrecy signal to individuals who pay a token investment (and fees) to become a Cayman-resident “Person of Independent Means”. This often referred to as a “Golden Visa”, which gives individuals a fake residency in a country which they can use to open bank accounts in the country. When information is collected on the accounts of golden-visa holders by more transparent countries, the information is sent to the individual’s fake resident country instead of their true country of residency, where they really should be paying taxes. For golden-visa holders “resident” in Cayman, the jurisdiction under voluntary secrecy, declines to receive the information sent by more transparent countries.

Another key indicator which reflects the absence of direct income tax is KFSI 14 on “tax court secrecy.” Cayman argues it should not have received ‘not applicable’ (equal to 100% secrecy score in this case) only because it has no direct income tax and therefore does not have these types of tax court proceedings. Naturally, no one needs to go to a tax court to ask for a reduction of taxes owed, if they don’t pay tax anyway but this is definitely not an indication for being transparent. As we explained above, a lack of direct taxation guarantees lower financial transparency, and this is exactly what our index attempts to measure.

The key point, as discussed under ‘Claim 1’ above, is that jurisdictions have a responsibility for the impact of their secrecy on the tax abuse and other forms of corruption that they facilitate in other countries. For Cayman to claim that it does not need a certain measure because of its own tax system is irrelevant, if the effect of that system is to promote abuse elsewhere. Cayman remains responsible for the secrecy it sells.

Despite the hostility directed by representatives of secrecy jurisdictions towards the Financial Secrecy Index 2020, they have been unable to muster any factually-based criticisms of the index. Instead, their responses have mostly fallen under the three types of claims debunked above. Perhaps this in itself is most revealing of all.

The Financial Secrecy Index 2020 has, as of the time of writing this, enjoyed media coverage in outlets with a combined audience of more than 2 billion people. The claims put out in response by secrecy jurisdictions have reached far fewer people and likely convinced even fewer (the responses to the promoted tweets of Cayman Finance are a joyous read, for example). Nonetheless, as public pressure continues to grown on governments to clamp down on financial secrecy, some secrecy jurisdictions will become even more desperate in their attempts to misdirect scrutiny and spread misinformation. Let’s make it clear that we’re on to their act.

Featured image: “General Election – Lies & Truth – Keep the Faith!” by Diego Sideburns is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Malta, murder and the finance curse: a podcast recommendation

This four-part podcast special series is well worth a listen. It’s called My Mother’s Murder, an investigation into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. It is narrated by one of her sons Paul Caruana Galizia. Here’s part of the description of the podcast series:

Daphne investigated corruption involving the most powerful businessmen and politicians in Malta where she lived. She paid with her life. Her son Paul goes in search of the men who ordered her murder.“

At the Tax Justice Network we have the highest respect for the courage of the incredible Daphne Caruana Galizia, whose work we followed closely, and also the bravery of her family who have continued the fight for justice in Malta.

Their perseverance, with massive support from the Daphne Project, has yielded impressive results, with regular visits and pressure from MEPs and eventually an inquiry by the European Banking Authority into the notorious Pilatus Bank, which you can read more about here and here. Members of the European Parliament expressed their concern that

in the absence of proper regulation Pilatus Bank has been free to pursue investigative journalists and whistleblowers with the full force of the law.”

This podcast is important particularly in the way it dissects how the corrupt can dismantle the State and capture it for their own ends, sliding so quickly into intimidation and violent repression of all who stand in their way.

Daphne’s work went way beyond Malta, to the very nature of corruption, its facilitators in the world’s most powerful countries, and of the finance curse, which we’ve written and warned so much about – Malta is an example of the worst that can happen when a nation has an overgrown finance sector which has total state protection. We’ve seen so much intimidation and fear of speaking out, particularly in small island nations suffering from the finance curse.

Malta is ranked number 18 in our most recent Financial Secrecy Index, with a secrecy score (62) which places it among the worst offenders in Europe . You can read our assessment here.

Here’s a trailer from Tortoise Media on the 4 part podcast series below. The podcast is available on various podcast platforms. Do have a listen.

One last thing. It’d be remiss of us not to mention our own monthly podcast the Taxcast which covers corruption, scandal and the fight for tax and economic justice around the world, which the mainstream media either ignores or covers badly. Check that out too!

Gender Equality: Can Taxation Make It A Reality?

© United Nations Photo

Days before the annual UN Commission on the Status of Women was scheduled to meet in New York to focus on the gender equality aims promised in global agreements, goals and declarations, writes Liz Nelson, will we finally look beyond traditional thinking about how these aims can (or cannot) be funded? Are we ready to admit that progressively targeted tax is the only effective financing solution?

We’ve all done it: promised, but not delivered. And our governments are no different. But should we really be so forgiving of our elected representatives when they fail to keep their promises on issues that are fundamental to our well-being and human development?

No: for everyone’s sake, and especially this year for women during the Beijing + 25 intergovernmental review of progress towards gender equality, we should not. We must be willing to hold our governments to account when they fail to take progressive action, or when they remain politically indifferent to the need to take substantial measures to achieve gender equality. Even when governments appear to be working toward those goals, how can we make sure they are delivering on their promises? Taxation and gender impact analysis are two of the most powerful ways we can hold our politicians to account.

Platforms, plans and priorities – and very little progress
According to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), a United Nations treaty signed in 1979 that is frequently described as an “international bill of human rights for women”, by ratifying international human rights treaties such as CEDAW, states assume obligations under international human rights law – and as “duty bearers” they have an obligation to “refrain from making laws, policies, regulations, programmes, administrative procedures and international structures that directly or indirectly result in the denial of the equal enjoyment by women of their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights” (CEDAW/C/GC/28).

Continue reading Liz Nelson’s blog post in full on the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity website.

Civil society letter supporting postponement of CSW64

An official letter advocating for a postponement of UN CSW as opposed to a scaled down version and signed by 499 civil society organisations from 92 countries was sent this week to UN Secretary General António Guterres and UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

It sets out why the Commission on the Status of Women’s (CSW) annual meeting is such an important mechanism for accountability ‘to all women and girls in all their diversity around the world’ and the ‘most important annual process to review progress and challenges towards achieving women’s human rights, gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.’

Download letter

The Financial Secrecy Index reached a record-breaking number of people this year

Launched two weeks ago, the 2020 edition of our Financial Secrecy Index has broken every record we track on the index’s reach and media impact. First published in 2009, the global coverage of this year’s edition of the index reflects a growing urgency shared by people around the world to expose and reign in rampant tax abuse by the ultra-rich and powerful.

The Financial Secrecy Index ranks each country based on how intensely the country’s legal and financial system allows wealthy individuals and criminals to hide and launder money extracted from around the world. A higher rank on the index does not necessarily mean a jurisdiction is more secretive, but rather that the jurisdiction plays a bigger role globally in enabling secretive banking, anonymous shell company ownership, anonymous real estate ownership or other forms of financial secrecy, which in turn enable money laundering, tax evasion and huge offshore concentrations of untaxed wealth. A highly secretive jurisdiction that provides little to no financial services to non-residents, like Samoa (ranked 86th), will rank below a moderately secretive jurisdiction that is a major world player, like Japan (ranked 7th). The aim is not to penalise jurisdictions with greater scale, but simply to recognise that their secrecy poses greater risks – and so it is more important that they behave responsibly.

World’s top suppliers of financial secrecy:

1 Cayman
2 US
3 Switzerland
4 Hong Kong
5 Singapore
6 Luxembourg
7 Japan
8 Netherlands
9 BVI
10 UAE

Financial secrecy keeps tax abuse feasible, drug cartels bankable. But most gov'ts are saying enough. #FSI2020 https://t.co/54gVv1mmD4
— Tax Justice Network Bsky: @taxjustice.net (@TaxJusticeNet) February 18, 2020

The 2020 edition of the index saw Switzerland reduce its ranking to the third biggest enabler of financial secrecy in the world, marking the first time the country did not rank worst on the index since 2011. Despite escalating its contribution to global financial secrecy since the publication of the 2018 edition of the index, the US remained the second biggest enabler of financial secrecy in the world after Cayman overtook both the US and Switzerland to the top of the 2020 index. This marks the first time Cayman ranked first on the Financial Secrecy Index.

These changes on the ranking told three major international stories that were covered widely around the world: a British territory topped the index for the first time on the same day the EU blacklisted the territory; the US continued to escalate its financial secrecy despite ambitions announced by Senator Lindsey Graham to improve the US’s ranking on the Financial Secrecy Index; Switzerland managed to lose its position as the world’s greatest enabler of financial secrecy amid a global trend of governments curbing financial secrecy. The index also told many regional and country-specific stories on which we worked with our partners and allies around the world to shine a spotlight on.

As of writing, the Financial Secrecy Index 2020 has been featured in over 700 articles and broadcast pieces. This coverage has spanned across 80 countries and included several high profile publications like the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Daily Maverick, the Times of India, Agence Ecofin, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, ABC Australia, Il Sole 24 Ore, Der Spiegel, Clarin and El Pais.

The launch of the index also saw an outpour of support and commentary from renowned economists, organisations and tax advocates. Gabriel Zucman, professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley and author of The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay, described the index as “a valuable tool to spot where bad regulations emerge around the world and thus be able to propose strategies for a more transparent world.” Transparency International published a comparison of the Financial Secrecy Index and Corruption Perception Index, illustrating how the two indices build a fuller picture. OpenOwnership discussed the global progress on beneficial ownership revealed by the index.

Altogether, we saw eight op-eds supporting the index published in Latin America, four in Europe, four in Africa and two in Asia. Among these were several from Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation commissioners, including Eva Joly former member of the European Parliament and vice chair of the Commission of Inquiry on Money Laundering, Tax Evasion and Fraud; Léonce Ndikumana, Professor of economics and Director of the African Development Policy Program at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts; Jayati Ghosh, professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University; Wayne Swan, former treasurer and deputy prime minister of Australia; and Ricardo Martner, economist and former Chief of the Fiscal Affairs Unit of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Discussions of the Financial Secrecy Index took place beyond just screens and broadsheets. The UK’s performance on the index was raised in the House of Commons by UK Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, and speakers from across the parliament in a debate on tax avoidance and evasion. The index was presented in the US Senate by the FACT Coalition, with speakers from Transparency International, the National District Attorneys Association, the Fraternal Order of Police, Global Financial Integrity and Jubilee USA Network.

All in all, the Financial Secrecy Index 2020 has so far reached a viewership of over 2 billion, blasting a bright, searing light through the fog of financial secrecy. Countries that peddle in financial secrecy can no longer do so in secret and the record-breaking reach of the Financial Secrecy Index shows that people around the world will no longer stomach financial secrecy.

Edition 13 of the Tax Justice Network’s Francophone podcast: édition 13 de podcast Francophone par Tax Justice Network

We’re pleased to share the 13th edition of Tax Justice Network’s monthly podcast/radio show for francophone Africa by finance journalist Idriss Linge in Cameroon covering the Financial Secrecy Index 2020 results. Nous sommes fiers de partager avec vous cette nouvelle émission de radio/podcast du Réseau pour la Justice Fiscale, Tax Justice Network produite en Afrique francophone par le journaliste financier Idriss Linge au Cameroun.

Dans cette 13^ème édition du programme Impôts et Justice Sociale:

Nous revenons sur Le Financial Secrecy Index, l’indice d’opacité financière publiée par Tax Justice Network le 18 février 2020. 17 pays africains ont été notés, et sont ceux qui impacte le moins au niveau du monde. Mais sur bien des indicateurs du classement, l’Afrique est critiquable. C’est le cas en matière de secret bancaire, ou des transactions juridiques sur les entreprises

Comme invités:

Diakite Nohoum, expert de la justice sociale, directeur du réseau Publiez ce Que vous Payez Mali
Jean Mballa, Directeur Exécutif du Centre Régional Africain pour le Développement Endogène et Communautaire, membre de TJNA
Charlie Martial Ngounou, expert en gouvernance et données publiques ouvertes, président de l’ONG Afroleadership

Vous pouvez suivre le Podcast sur:

Le télécharger pour l’écouter hors connexion sous le lien suivant
Notre page facebook à l’adresse : https://www.facebook.com/impôts et justice sociale/
Notre Twitter : www.twitter.com/ImpotsSociale
La publication sur Youtube
Et pour ceux qui ont l’application stitcher : https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/idriss/impots-et-justice-sociale
Si vous souhaitez recevoir cette production ou être média partenaires ou simplement contribuer, vous pouvez nous écrire à l’adresse Impô[email protected]

Edition 26 of the Tax Justice Network Arabic monthly podcast 26# الجباية ببساطة

Welcome to the twenty-sixth edition of our monthly Arabic podcast/radio show Taxes Simply الجباية ببساطة contributing to tax justice public debate around the world. Taxes Simply الجباية ببساطة is produced and presented by Walid Ben Rhouma and Osama Diab of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, also an investigative journalist. The programme is available for listeners to download and it’s also available for free to any radio stations who’d like to broadcast it or websites who’d like to post it. You can also join the programme on Facebook and on Twitter.

Taxes Simply #26 – Arab countries’ performance in the Financial Secrecy Index

Welcome to the twenty-sixth edition of Taxes Simply, a special edition that covers the performance of Arab countries in the recently published Financial Secrecy Index published by the Tax Justice Network in a conversation between Walid Ben Rhouma and the researcher in the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, Osama Diab.

This edition also contains a collection of the most important economic and tax news in the region and the world including:

The United Nations issues a report on companies operating in Israeli settlements
Egypt is negotiating a new agreement with the International Monetary Fund
The death of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose era was characterised by the spread of financial corruption, which was one of the key reasons for his 2011 overthrow.

الجباية ببساطة #٢٦ – أداء الدول العربية في مؤشر السرية المالية ٢٠٢٠

أهلا بكم في العدد السادس والعشرين من الجباية ببساطة وهو العدد الخاص الذي يتناول أداء الدول العربية في مؤشر السرية العالمية الصادر حديثا عن شبكة العدالة الضريبية في حوار ما بين وليد بن رحومة والباحث في المبادرة المصرية للحقوق الشخصية أسامة دياب. يحتوي أيضا العدد على مجموعة من أهم الأخبار الاقتصادية والضريبية في المنطقة والعالم وتشمل: ١) إصدار الأمم المتحدة لتقرير عن الشركات العاملة بالمستوطنات الإسرائيلية؛ ٢) مصر تتفاوض على اتفاق جديد مع صندوق النقد الدولي؛ ٣) وفاة رئيس مصر السابق حسني مبارك والذي تميز عهده باستشراء الفساد المالي والذي كان واحدا من أسباب الإطاحة به في عام ٢٠١١.

تابعونا على صفحتنا على الفايسبوك وتويتر https://www.facebook.com/ TaxesSimply Tweets by taxes_simply

Tax Justice February 2020 Portuguese podcast #10: Ilhas Cayman é o pior ofensor global, mostra Índice de Sigilo Financeiro 2020

O Índice de Sigilo Financeiro 2020 da Tax Justice Network é o tema da décima edição do podcast É da sua conta. O indicador aponta as Ilhas Cayman, Estados Unidos e Suíça como os piores ofensores globais. Além disso, mostra que a maior parte das práticas que facilitam a corrupção, a lavagem de dinheiro e abusos de impostos vêm dos países mais ricos, membros da Organização para a Cooperação e Desenvolvimento Econômico (OCDE).

No É da sua conta #10 você ouve…

Tudo sobre o Índice de Sigilo Financeiro 2020.
O ranking dos 10 piores ofensores globais
Países da OCDE respondem por quase metade da composição do ISF.
Detalhes sobre os países da América Latina, com destaque para o Brasil.
O ABC da transparência financeira e tributária.
Diminuição em 7% no sigilo financeiro no mundo na comparação 2020/2018.
Recomendações da Tax Justice Network para combater sonegação e fraudes financeiras.

Participantes desta edição:

Shanna Lima – pesquisadora da Tax Justice Network
Veronica Grondona – pesquisadora da Tax Justice Network
Nick Shaxson – Tax Justice Network
Hilberto Silva – ex-executivo da Odebrecht

Links para assuntos citados no podcast

Ìndice de Sigilo Financeiro: https://fsi.taxjustice.net/pt/
A Lavanderia (filme)
Depoimento Hilberto Silva (ex-Odebrecht): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-q6Hy_0dpI&t=1514s

Conecte-se com a gente!

Download do podcast
Nosso canal no Youtube
Inscreva-se: [email protected]
Twitter
Facebook
Plataformas de áudio: Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Deezer, iTunes.

É da sua conta (www.edasuaconta.com) é o podcast mensal em português da Tax Justice Network (https://taxjustice.net/), com produção de Daniela Stefano (https://twitter.com/batateira), Grazielle David (https://twitter.com/GrazielleDavid) e Luciano Máximo (https://twitter.com/lucianomaximo) e coordenação de Naomi Fowler (https://twitter.com/Naomi_Fowler).

O download do programa é gratuito e a reprodução é livre para rádios.

What criminal clans and German family businesses have in common

This article first appeared in Handelsblatt on 19 February 2020.

Just a couple of years ago, some members of a Lebanese family were suspected of committing mafia-style crimes, including blackmail, drug-dealing, the theft of a giant gold coin (100 kg!) from Berlin’s Bode Museum, and the laundering of millions of euros through real estate investments. Remember? This story reminds the whole world that Germany has so far been in no position to mock countries shaken by embezzlement scandals, such as the recent Luanda Leaks in Angola. But that is not because of foreign family clans, but because of a much more German variant of family dynasties.

A large economy, internationally networked, legally secured, with a culture of secrecy and virtually no means of unmasking and punishing money launderers: criminals couldn’t dream of anything better. Every year, up to €100 billion are laundered in this country, according to an academic report written at the request of the Finance Ministry.

When illegal funds are laundered in the housing sector, they do not only risk financing mafias and terrorists, but they also contribute to rising rents and purchase prices. In Berlin, real estate transactions amounted to €11 bn in 2018, up from €3.6 billion in 2009, with rents for ordinary tenants exploding. Some of the demand driving up the prices is likely to consist of money of dubious origin.

That’s why we can only applaud the fact that, after years of denial, Germany finally seems determined to get rid of its reputation of being a “gangster’s paradise”. This is even the main piece of news coming out of the publication of the 2020 Financial Secrecy Index. According to the 2020 Financial Secrecy Index published by the Tax Justice Network, a UK-based thinktank of which I am a director, Europe’s leading economy managed to dramatically reduce its contribution to global financial secrecy, taking its ranking down from 7th on the 2018 index to 14th.

This improvement is mainly due to the adoption of the new European directive regulations into local legislation. In response to the Panama Papers revelations,the European Union (EU) tightened its directive to counter money laundering within the European financial system. One important step is to unmask criminals that hide behind anonymous companies by the introduction, in January 2020, of registers of corporate ownership, showing who ultimately controls every company incorporated across most of Europe, and in theory accessible not only to the tax administrations and law enforcement, but also to journalists and civil society.

Few countries have complied timely with the new rules. Germany’s swift action is all the more impressive as it extended the obligation to disclose the names of the beneficial owners to foreign trusts and foreign letter box companies purchasing German real estate, going even further than the EU required. This decision was made despite intense resistance, particularly from the almighty German business dynasties. Speaking in the name of tradition, these huge so-called family businesses now threaten to defend their culture of secrecy at court. .

The Deutschland dynasties believe they do not have to reveal their profits, even though, in reality, many of them are now multinationals. And their counterattack has already begun. Last November, in a decision that the majority of citizens didn’t notice, Germany was, because of their lobbying, one of the 15 European countries failing to support a new directive that would require multinationals to reveal how much profit they make and how little tax they pay in each country they operate in.

Gangster's Paradise Germany: What criminal clans and German family businesses have in common. My op-ed today in @handelsblatt

Ungated long version available @steuergerecht https://t.co/af0tQMNBHh https://t.co/uMbfAAFTMF @StiftungFamUnt #SteueroaseDeutschland #Brexit #tax pic.twitter.com/39XWexlXRp
— Markus Meinzer (@markusmeinzer) February 20, 2020

When multinationals and the super-rich manage not to pay their fair share of taxes, governments cannot invest in access to education, health care, and decent pensions, or take measures to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis. Arguing that their coffers are empty, those governments opt for austerity measures, becoming more and more discredited in the eyes of the population, and fostering the kind of populist backlash that allows authoritarianism to flourish.

This dynamic also exacerbates gender inequality, because, in Europe just as in the rest of the world, women are overrepresented among the poor and among the demographic group with informal or low-paid jobs. In addition, they tend to take on a larger share of unpaid care work when social services are cut.

Germany must now prove that it is really willing to enforce its stricter laws. It will have the opportunity to do so in the coming months when faced with the experts from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the most important international body for the prevention of money laundering. Based in Paris, this organization examines every ten years whether states comply with international standards, and Germany’s audit will begin in April.

In 2010, the experts were unforgiving. Germany failed 20 out of the 49 criteria and according to observers barely escaped the body’s blacklist. To make them forget their last evaluation, Berlin should take bold steps: give its public prosecutors, police and supervisory agencies real resources to investigate, as well as annul old bearer shares that allow their holders completely anonymous ownership of companies despite all transparency registers.

With Brexit a reality, the risk now is that the UK may transform itself into a so-called “Singapore-on- Thames”, ie an even more harmful facilitator of financial secrecy, putting European countries’ efforts in jeopardy. But it is also an amazing opportunity. Outside the EU, the United Kingdom will no longer be able to block anti-tax haven measures from being adopted in Brussels, and to defend its satellite secrecy jurisdictions. Europe, and especially Germany, no longer has an excuse for not going further with transparency. German family dynasties finally have to let go of some of their cherished secrecy because it is this very secrecy that keeps criminals in business.

Financial Secrecy Index: who are the world’s worst offenders? The Tax Justice Network podcast special, February 2020

In this special extended Taxcast, Naomi Fowler takes you on a whistle-stop guided tour on an express train around the world with some of the Tax Justice Network team, looking at the worst offenders selling secrecy services according to the latest Financial Secrecy Index results What can nations can do to protect themselves and their populations from financial and legal secrecy?

Featuring: John Christensen, Moran Harari, Rachel Etter-Phoya, Andres Knobel, Alex Cobham of the Tax Justice Network. Produced and presented by Naomi Fowler, also of the Tax Justice Network.

The financial secrecy index was first published in 2009. So we now have over 10 years of data to draw on…and it shows that civil society can really make a difference.
Non-OECD countries should recognise that OECD member States are only interested in protecting their own interests and cannot even begin to pretend that they are representing the interests of the rest of the world. So if the non OECD member States, in other words, the rest of the world, want to become rule makers, not rule takers, then they need to reject the pretensions of the OECD member States to be the rule makers. We need a global, legitimate rule maker. And ideally it should be the United Nations that takes on the role of making the rules for the whole of the world.”
~ John Christensen

Find out more:

There’s more information on the Financial Secrecy Index here.
The full podcasts on each region are available here.
Webinars on the index, including tutorials are available here.

Want to download and listen on the go? Download onto your phone or hand held device by clicking ‘save link’ or ‘download link’ here.

Want more Taxcasts? The full playlist is here and here. Or here.

Want to subscribe? Subscribe via email by contacting the Taxcast producer on naomi [at] taxjustice.net OR subscribe to the Taxcast RSS feed here OR subscribe to our youtube channel, Tax Justice TV OR find us on Acast, Spotify, iTunes or Stitcher.

Join us on facebook and get our blogs into your feed.

Follow Naomi Fowler John Christensen, The Taxcast and the Tax Justice Network on Twitter.

How the Finance Curse hurts U.S. agriculture

An article in the U.S. magazine The Nation, written by today’s blogger (pictured above), highlights how the finance curse strikes U.S. agriculture.

It starts by focusing on the political divides that seem to have opened up between the so-called “coastal elites” which tend to vote for Democrats, and more rural constituencies, which voted more heavily for Donald Trump in the last elections. Voting patterns are obviously more complex than that, but the article highlights that there is great resentment among many people in urban centres about “whining and begging” rural farmers taking handouts.

Once the finance curse analysis comes into the picture, however, the picture changes completely. As the article notes:

both the narrative that subsidies flow from “coastal elites” to farmers and the fatalism about rural economic decline indicate a profound misunderstanding of what’s actually going on.

That’s because of the role of financial players, institutions, mechanisms and techniques, often on behalf of distant shareholders. Several decades ago, much of the wealth that was created from the soils, sun and rains tended to circulate back to local communities, as farmers bought inputs and services from local seeds suppliers, grocery stores, parts suppliers, doctors, restaurants, banks, insurance firms, and so on. Since the 1980s in particular, “financialisation” has happened: the penetration of financial players, techniques, institutions and mechanisms into every step of the agricultural process.

Large firms often based in distant money centres have gobbled up the local players, taken these formerly local services in-house, cut out the local suppliers, and sent the dividends off to shareholders and owners in New York, Chicago, Houston, and overseas and offshore. Those local circulatory systems for wealth have been unrolled and turned into a one-way conveyor belt shipping wealth outwards.

We have already pointed to the same essential geographical story in Britain, as private equity firms and other predatory players based substantially in London extract wealth from other parts of the country, not just redistributing wealth upwards, but harming overall national prosperity too.

This giant extraction machine generates tremendous anger, of course. But the article goes on to say that this extraction isn’t just happening in agriculture: it’s happening all across the economy.

It turns out that rural U.S. farmers and those “coastal elites” are on the same side of the real economic divide, which is between the beneficiaries of the financial extraction, and those being extracted from. In this analysis, of course, lies the seeds of some potentially interesting political alliances.

US launch event for Financial Secrecy Index 2020

Join Tax Justice Network and the FACT Coalition for a discussion of the 2020 Financial Secrecy Index and relevant US legislation.

As Congress considers measures to combat financial secrecy and end the formation of anonymous companies in the United States, the Tax Justice Network and the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition ask you to join them on Capitol Hill for the US launch of the 2020 Financial Secrecy Index on Wednesday, February 19, 2020, from 9:30 am – 10:30 am. The event will take place in SD-106 (Dirksen Senate Office Building).

Since 2009, the Tax Justice Network has produced the Financial Secrecy Index biennially, analysing the level of secrecy in the world’s financial centres. It is the only comprehensive ranking that seeks to apply a methodical approach to defining secrecy jurisdictions. The previous iteration of the Financial Secrecy Index, released in January 2018, rated the United States as the 2nd largest secrecy jurisdiction in the world, behind only Switzerland.

The 2020 Financial Secrecy Index Launch Event will feature a presentation by Tax Justice Network on the 2020 Financial Secrecy Index results, including where the US falls in the new rankings and why. A panel of experts will then discuss the national security, law enforcement, human rights, and economic implications of financial secrecy in the United States as well as bipartisan legislation (such as the ILLICIT CASH Act and the Corporate Transparency Act) currently pending in Congress to tackle financial secrecy.

Coffee, Tea, and Light Pastries Will Be Provided

9:30 AM – Welcome Remarks — Clark Gascoigne, The FACT Coalition
9:35 AM — Presentation of the Financial Secrecy Index 2020 – Jack Blum, Tax Justice Network
9:50 AM – Panel Discussion featuring:

Caren Benjamin, Polaris
Jack Blum, Tax Justice Network
Annabel Lee Hogg, The B Team (TBC)
Tim Richardson, Fraternal Order of Police
Jodi Vittori, Transparency International Defense & Security
Clark Gascoigne, The FACT Coalition – moderator

10:15 AM – Audience Q&A
10:30 AM — End

After Brexit, EU blacklists UK’s territory Cayman

From the Financial Times:

The Cayman Islands will join Oman, Fiji, and Vanuatu on an EU blacklist of foreign tax havens, making it the first UK overseas territory to be named and shamed by Brussels

We have lambasted Europe’s blacklists for years, which are based above all on political considerations. In particular, the EU does not seem to want to blacklist EU member states, or powerful countries or . . . any tax haven that really matters. At the time of writing, the list consists of these giants of global finance:

American Samoa
Fiji
Guam
Oman
Samoa
Trinidad and Tobago
US Virgin Islands
Vanuatu

The EU even has official excuses for this nonsense. For a more serious list, based on objectively verifiable criteria, see our 2018 Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) – Cayman is at number three, below Switzerland and the United States. The all new Financial Secrecy Index 2020 will be published next week – where will these three jurisdictions be? We can already reveal that there will be significant changes, up and down the index! (And some good news.)

In the tax haven world, Cayman isn’t a minnow. So this latest move by the EU, which needs to be confirmed by EU Finance Ministers next week, is significant.

We also expect, based on conversations we’ve been having, that the forthcoming blacklist will include the current eight, plus Palau, Botswana, Panama and Cayman. Turkey is a question mark. This is an improvement: in 2018, we reckoned that the EU’s blacklist targeted just 1 percent of financial secrecy services threatening EU economies: if our sources are correct, the new list would represent 7.3 percent. Or about one fourteenth of the total problem…

It’s notable, of course, that this comes just a few weeks after Britain’s formal exit as a full member of the European Union, and as it enters a transitional negotiation stage for final exit. Cayman and the British Virgin Islands, another British overseas territory, was already under review and on an EU grey list, (a classification that gives jurisdictions time to shape up). While it could be argued that Cayman had simply failed to address the specific technical criteria laid down by the criteria, there is no doubt that it represents, as the Guardian puts it:

a clear indication of [Britain’s] loss of influence on the EU’s decision-making

Britain has for years fought hard to protect the interests of the offshore financial industry in its Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories like Cayman, and Brexit certainly weakens their positions. While TJN has not taken a position to support Brexit (far from it), we recognise that the EU’s new freedom to sanction recalcitrant British offshore jurisdictions, without British lobbying, is a positive thing.

The EU has made clear, repeatedly, that the UK will not be allowed to undercut it on financial and other regulations, and keep full access to the single market. While UK politicians may insist on their post-Brexit right to race to the bottom, and profess surprise at the unreasonableness of the EU position, the choice is stark. If Britain is determined to hold onto its grubby role as the master of ceremonies for the financial recalcitrants of its secrecy network, the UK and the City of London financial centre which derives so much wealth from these places will face some uncomfortable truths. Many Europeans don’t have much appetite for compromise, and even see Brexit as an opportunity.

In the words of Sven Giegold, a leading member of the European Parliament (and also, as it happens, a founder of TJN):

The time for special treatment of the UK is over. The British government’s attempt to give its London financial centre permanent and comprehensive access to the European financial system for decades is audacious. The EU will not let the decision as to which British financial market rules are compatible with European rules be taken out of its hands.

We’d fully support that. Interesting times lie ahead.

The Tax Justice Network’s February 2020 Spanish language podcast: Justicia ImPositiva, nuestro podcast, febrero 2020

Welcome to this month’s latest podcast and radio programme in Spanish with Marcelo Justo and Marta Nuñez, free to download and broadcast on radio networks across Latin America and Spain. ¡Bienvenidos y bienvenidas a nuestro podcast y programa radiofónico! (Ahora también estamos en iTunes.)

En este programa:

El Fondo Monetario Internacional y América Latina
Las batallas impositivas en todo el mundo desde Europa a América Latina
Los multimillonarios en Estados Unidos que quieren pagar más impuestos y aumentar el salario mínimo
¿Qué compañías latinoamericanas operan en Londres y para qué lo hacen?

INVITADOS:

Desde Ciudad de Mexico, Oscar Ugarteche, profesor de la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, la UNAM y autor de Historia Critica del FMI (Ugarteche O.: (2019), “Pedro Beltrán, Rómulo Ferrero and the origins of neoliberalism in Peru: 1945-1962”, PSL Quarterly Review,)
Desde Londres, John Christensen, director y fundador de Tax Justice Network
Desde Santiago de Chile, el economista Ricardo Martner de la Comisión Independiente para la Reforma de la Fiscalidad Corporativa Internacional, ICRICT
Desde Quito, Kathiuska King Mantilla, (blog www.katiuskaking.com ) de la Red de Justicia Fiscal
Desde Buenos Aires Juan Valerdi, economista de la Universidad de la Plata y ex asesor del Banco Central de Argentina. (Publicaciones https://unlp.academia.edu/JuanValerdi)
Desde Washington, Nick Hanauer, Patriotic Millionaires
Desde Buenos Aires, Adrian Falco Coordinador del Programa de Integración Regional de la Fundación SES de Argentina. (América Latina Offshore: Viaje a lo desconocido https://americalatinaoffshore.org/viaje-a-lo-desconocido )

MÁS INFORMACIÓN:

Enlace de descarga para las emisoras: http://traffic.libsyn.com/j-impositiva/JI_feb_20.mp3

Subscribase a nuestro RSS feed: http://j_impositiva.libsyn.com/rss

O envien un correo electronico a Naomi [@] taxjustice.net para ser incorporado a nuestra lista de suscriptores.

Sigannos por twitter en http://www.twitter.com/J_ImPositiva

Estamos tambien en facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Justicia-ImPositiva-1464800660510982/

Edition 12 of the Tax Justice Network’s Francophone podcast/radio show: édition #12 de radio/podcast Francophone par Tax Justice Network

We’re pleased to share the twelfth edition of Tax Justice Network’s monthly podcast/radio show for francophone Africa by finance journalist Idriss Linge in Cameroon. Nous sommes fiers de partager avec vous cette nouvelle émission de radio / podcast du Réseau pour la Justice Fiscale, Tax Justice Network produite en Afrique francophone par le journaliste financier Idriss Linge au Cameroun.

Dans cette 12^ème édition du programme Impôts et Justice Sociale:

Nous revenons sur les grands sujets qui ont marqué l’actualité de la justice fiscale et sociale avec une incidence sur l’Afrique. Il s’agit notamment des Luanda Leaks, de la justice fiscale dans le secteur de la santé en Afrique et de la position des sociétés civiles africaines sur les négociations en cours pour une fiscalité internationale.

Comme invités :

Will Fitzgibbon Journaliste membre de International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
Louis Merlin Tsamo, Secretaire Général de l’association Positive Generation
Thialy Faye, Juriste fiscaliste, chargé de programme justice fiscale, au Forum Social et Consultant chez Public Service International

Vous pouvez suivre le Podcast sur :

la page de l’émission qui est celle-ci
Le télécharger pour l’écouter hors connexion sous le lien suivant
Notre page facebook à l’adresse : https://www.facebook.com/impôts et justice sociale/
Notre Twitter : www.twitter.com/ImpotsSociale
La publication sur Youtube
Et pour ceux qui ont l’application stitcher : https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/idriss/impots-et-justice-sociale
Si vous souhaitez recevoir cette production ou être média partenaires ou simplement contribuer, vous pouvez nous écrire à l’adresse Impô[email protected]

Edition 25 of the Tax Justice Network Arabic monthly podcast 25# الجباية ببساطة

Welcome to the twenty-fifth edition of our monthly Arabic podcast/radio show Taxes Simply الجباية ببساطة contributing to tax justice public debate around the world. Taxes Simply الجباية ببساطة is produced and presented by Walid Ben Rhouma and Osama Diab of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, also an investigative journalist. The programme is available for listeners to download and it’s also available for free to any radio stations who’d like to broadcast it or websites who’d like to post it. You can also join the programme on Facebook and on Twitter.

Taxes Simply #25 – Oxfam’s shocking data on increasing inequality and wealth concentration

Welcome to this latest edition of Taxes Simply. We begin with an interview with Nabil Abdo, the Regional Policy Adviser for Oxfam in the Middle East, on that organisation’s recent report, which contains new shocking figures on the increasing disparity in wealth between the world’s rich and the rest of humanity.

In the second part of the programme, we present a summary of the most important tax and economic news in January 2020, including:

new leaks from Luanda, Angola
confidence in capitalism collapses globally
the arrest by the administration of the head of the Egyptian Tax Authority, charging him with bribery
Jeff Bezos earns $15 million a second
Jordan signs a new agreement with the IMF

الجباية ببساطة ٢٥# – بيانات أوكسفام الصادمة حول تزايد اللامساواة وتركز الثروة

أهلا بكم في في العدد الخامس والعشرين من الجباية ببساطة. نبدأ العدد بحوار مع نبيل عبدو، مستشار السياسات الإقليمية لمنظمة أوكسفام في الشرق الأوسط، بخصوص التقرير الصادر مؤخرًا عن المنظمة والذي يحتوي على أرقام صادمة جديدة عن التفاوت الرهيب والمتزايد في الثروة بين أغنياء العالم وباقي البشرية. في الجزء الثاني من البرنامج نقدم ملخص لأهم أخبار الضرائب والاقتصاد في شهر يناير/كانون الثاني، ويحتوي ملخصنا للأخبار على: ١) تسريبات جديدة من لواندا، أنجولا؛ ٢) الثقة تنهار في النظام الرأسمالي عالميًا؛ ٣) الرقابة الإدارية تضبط رئيس مصلحة الضرائب المصرية متلبسًا بتلقي رشوة؛ ٤) جيف بيزوس يربح ١٥ مليون دولار في الثانية؛ ٥) الأردن توقع اتفاقًا جديدًا مع صندوق النقد.

تابعونا على صفحتنا على الفايسبوك وتويتر https://www.facebook.com/ TaxesSimply Tweets by taxes_simply

A Pyrrhic victory for the OECD?

The OECD secretariat has announced that it obtained agreement from the Inclusive Framework to press ahead with its own proposals, following US-French agreement of sorts – but at what price for the organisation’s legitimacy, and the future of international tax rules? I’ll discuss three scenarios, the implications of the announcement and the broader context. If you just want to read about the scenarios, skip to the bottom of this blog.

While the outcome is disappointing, it is of course not entirely surprising. The ‘Inclusive Framework’ is built on the OECD’s pledge that members would have an equal say – but even membership is premised on non-OECD countries that had no say in the first Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) process, in 2013-2015, having been forced to accept and implement the BEPS outcomes. It cannot be shocking, then, to see the OECD secretariat’s ‘unified proposal’ now confirmed in place of the work programme agreed by the Inclusive Framework last year. But a range of implications flow from this, and they are largely not positive for the OECD – although they may, eventually, set the stage for more positive global tax outcomes.

Immediate implications for the OECD process

In terms of the OECD process, there is an insistence that things stay on schedule – that is, that everything must be wrapped up by end-2020. But there are so many, quite large things still open in Pillar One, from the scope of industries to be covered to the range of financial thresholds.

The 11 elements of work remaining on pillar one demonstrate how much is still open, even after the Inclusive Framework has been forced to drop its own work programme.

Even now, the work plan remains extremely ambitious. Taking into account that the public consultation saw strong and widespread objections on everything from the scope of Pillar One, to thresholds, to concept of dispute resolution mechanisms, only further brute force will obtain a 2020 conclusion.

One implication of these interacting pressures seems likely to be a tendency towards the lowest common denominator: that is, the need for quick agreement across a whole range of issues will set a tendency towards narrower scope, higher thresholds and less substantial redistribution.

And this is without mentioning that the US proposal for ‘safe harbours’ (or opt-outs for multinationals, if you prefer) is still noted in the OECD document. Unless the agreement was to note it and then never mention it again, that might well threaten the process down the track. There has been no suggestion that the US is ready to drop the idea, despite widespread opposition from other OECD members.

On Pillar Two, things remain very wide open – there’s not much new detail in the document, just an indication that work continues. One very welcome element: “Working Party 11 has set up a special subgroup on financial accounts.” An important technical issue that has come up in the process is the weakness of international accounting standards, or more specifically their failure to provide a common basis for any kind of unitary tax approach. It is fundamental for progress and any hope of certainty for tax authorities and taxpayers, that the negotiations can reach a common position on the data that will be relied upon.

Broader context

Stepping back, the broader implications of the politics seem larger than the technical challenges that remain. A quick look at the timeline:

2018: Comprehensive recognition, including from the OECD and with US support, that global reforms are needed and – crucially – that they must ‘go beyond the arm’s length principle’. This is a truly momentous shift, finally agreeing to unpick the League of Nations decisions of 1920s and 1930s that imposed the separate entity approach and with it the path to increasingly unsustainable transfer pricing approaches as multinational companies became increasingly global, complex and structured to avoid. The framing, in a commitment to a fairer distribution of global taxing rights, is equally significant.
January 2019: The Inclusive Framework agrees a work programme with three proposals on Pillar One, including the G24 proposal for a relatively full unitary approach with formulary apportionment. All three proposals include a unitary approach; the big question is what element of transfer pricing may remain in place, if any.
Summer 2019: A deal between the US and France, subsequently backed by the G7 group of countries, becomes the basis on which OECD secretariat brings forward its own ‘unified proposal’. This eliminates the G24 approach and the rest of the Inclusive Framework’s agreed work programme, and replaces it with much more complex and uncertain arrangements, per the US-French position. The main attraction appears to be that the various issues of scope and amounts A, B and C offer the possibility of introducing a unitary element but without any significant shift in taxing rights – either away from the main corporate tax havens, nor towards the lower-income countries that lose the greatest share of revenues to avoidance, but still increasing revenues for OECD members.
Autumn 2019: The subsequent public consultation and private responses, not least from G24 members, show widespread discontent with both the secretariat proposal itself, and the undermining of the agreed process. The failure ever to evaluate the Inclusive Framework work programme’s three proposals is a particular issue. For that reason, there is great interest and concern about our analysis, commissioned by ICRICT, that uses the only public data (on US multinationals) to show the potential implications of the new proposal. In our figure 2, we model a heavily simplified version of the OECD proposal (the blue bars) – and the implications are clear, with global inequalities in taxing rights actually exacerbated rather than ameliorated as once promised.

Finally, as we have seen, the US went back on the deal with France, and December 2019 and January 2020 have been spent in their public and private dispute and renegotiation, concluding only as the Inclusive Framework meeting begins.

Political implications

And now the Inclusive Framework has ‘agreed’ to go ahead with the secretariat’s ‘unified proposal’, tweaked for the US-French position which remains without full agreement, but with the continuing commitment to urgent finalisation within 2020. What does this mean for the current reform process, and the longer-term dynamics? There are two main aspects.

First, for the current reforms, there is a real risk. Most of the ambition, in terms of redistributing revenues away from tax havens, has already been sacrificed in the unified proposal – which brings complexity without benefits, especially for lower-income countries. But that weak and complex outcome may still come with a high cost – because the spectre remains of mandatory binding dispute resolution, which would tie the hands of lower-income countries in particular in the face of multinationals’ aggression.

At the same time, any promised benefits of Pillar Two remain at best uncertain – and quite possibly entirely ephemeral, if a global blending approach were to be demanded by the US and others.

Second, however, it is the broader political ramifications that may prove to be the most important. The questionable credibility of the ‘Inclusive Framework’ is in tatters. As the Indian delegate said last year, ‘just because you call something ‘Inclusive’, does not make it inclusive’.

The Inclusive Framework’s agreed work programme has been thrown out, in favour of a secretariat proposal designed purely to meet the demands of two big OECD countries, the US and France (the biggest member and the OECD’s host country). The OECD’s claims that Inclusive Framework members have an ‘equal say’ have been shown to be completely hollow. The complete elimination of the G24 proposal in particular, and the Inclusive Framework’s forced acceptance of the unified proposal this week, has confirmed lower-income countries’ irrelevance at the OECD.

It’s hard to see how any future OECD process can make any credible claim to be inclusive. A good many OECD members may feel excluded; while the remaining Inclusive Framework members probably feel that their presence has done nothing but allow the OECD to bolster its claims to legitimacy.

Listening in the morning’s press conference to Pascal Saint-Amans talk about the importance of this agreement to avoid a (US-France, or global) trade war, you can only feel sympathetic. Within the problems facing the secretariat was a tradeoff between being vaguely inclusive, or addressing this threat. But that dynamic will always exist at the OECD, and so claims of inclusivity of non-members will never ring true. The comprehensive demonstration this week that the Inclusive Framework can simply be bent to OECD members’ perceived priorities has surely removed any last doubts.

Where next? Scenarios and opportunities

A major question now is where the next global tax talks after 2020 will take place. Such talks will certainly be needed, even if the timetable for BEPS 2.0 can be kept, and the OECD seems unlikely to be able to claim ‘inclusivity’. In the absence of new talks, and perhaps also in their presence, an explosion of unilateral measures seems the most likely outcome.

Those countries pursuing DSTs (digital services taxes) seem at least to have obtained some of the Trump administration’s attention, and so far no punitive response – confirming the value at one level of unilateral actions.

At the same time, the continuing resistance of OECD members to any meaningful UN process on international tax rules seems unlikely to dissipate any time soon. As the high-level participants at our virtual conference in December concluded, things will not be fixed by this OECD process – but ‘the genie is out of the bottle‘ as far as unitary taxation is concerned.

We had earlier identified three scenarios for the OECD process:

Limited reform. In this scenario, intended to meet US demands, the secretariat would deliver a reform that would redistribute little profit from tax havens, with some revenue benefit for major OECD countries and little for anyone else.
Process collapses due to lack of trust. In this scenario, the refusal to allow G24 countries or others the ‘equal say’ promised to the Inclusive Framework would be met by a rejection of the secretariat, and ultimately a collapse of the process.
Reset. Here, the threat of collapse would see the secretariat forced to make concessions to the Inclusive Framework. This would necessarily include a longer timeline, recognising that 2020 is simply too short for such a major overhaul of the rules, and an agreement to evaluate fully the three proposals that the Inclusive Framework had agreed to consider, including that of the G24.

As things stand, the secretariat has avoided scenarios 2 and 3 for now. The Inclusive Framework has been forced to accept the path to limited reforms on the basis of US-French dominance. Scenario 1, an agreement of sorts by end-2020 is now more likely; but it is also certain not to be the last word.

The Inclusive Framework has, perhaps, one last chance to bring concerted pressure to bear by June 2020. It’s conceivable that the G24 could demand a reopening of the issues and also the timeline, so that there could actually be an evaluation of the revenue implications of different proposals. A public demonstration of discontent might be worthwhile, despite the likely rebuff.

The chances are, in either case, that there will be no reset, and therefore no prospect in this process of considering the more full unitary approaches that would deliver meaningful redistribution of taxing rights, as was the initial promise of the negotiations. But that does not make this a success for those who favour minimal change from the status quo: the more complex and limited the outcomes of the OECD process, and the greater the insistence of the multinationals on binding dispute resolution, the greater the chance that this proves to be, for the OECD and its main members, a truly Pyrrhic victory: a deal that creates great uncertainty itself, and is followed immediately by multiple unilateral measures.

The OECD should be congratulated for holding things together this week; but the longer-term implications seem likely to be substantially damaging for international tax coordination, and for the organisation’s credibility as a broker of reforms.

Meanwhile, a number of G24 countries and others will currently be discussing their next moves – and it seems inevitable that much of their analysis will focus on options outside of the OECD and the Inclusive Framework. The Tax Justice Network, and the broader tax justice movement, will be active in supporting technical and political discussions alike. The upcoming Bangkok conference of the Financial Transparency Coalition can provide an important moment for broader evaluation.

Over the next year, the recently announced UN high-level panel on financial accountability, transparency and integrity (FACTI) will work to identify key priorities to address gaps in the international architecture that impede progress against illicit financial flows – including the major component which stems from the tax abuses of multinational companies. With power dynamics at the OECD laid bare this week, FACTI has a clear opportunity to propose a UN tax convention that would lead to a new, and globally representative forum for future policy negotiations.

Tax Justice January 2020 Portuguese podcast #9: IPTU – o bode expiatório dos impostos

No início de cada ano no Brasil, as prefeituras começam a cobrar o Imposto sobre a Propriedade Predial e Territorial Urbana (IPTU). Mas quanto se arrecada e para onde vai o dinheiro arrecadado? É sobre isso que vamos falar no episódio 9 do podcast É da sua conta.

O IPTU é um tributo que poderia ser muito mais importante para as cidades brasileiras, já que 45% de sua arrecadação é usada para financiar educação e saúde públicas. Mesmo assim, os municípios têm alíquotas baixas e quase não arrecadam IPTU. Esse imposto também sofre muita sonegação, o que acaba comprometendo serviços públicos, investimentos em infraestrutura urbana e a política de moradia. O que algumas prefeituras fazem para reverter esse quadro? E o que poderia ser feito para melhorar a arrecadação?

Uma das alternativas é a progressividade na cobrança do IPTU. Internacionalmente, apresentamos a proposta de tributação sobre o valor da terra de forma complementar no sistema tributário com o nosso colunista Nick Shaxson.

No É da sua conta #9 você ouve:

Como funciona a tributação do IPTU e para onde vai sua arrecadação.
Receita de IPTU no Brasil atinge 0,65% do PIB, enquanto em países da OCDE chega a 2% do PIB.
Dívida e sonegação: os desafios para a implementação do IPTU progressivo.
O IPTU, a função social da propriedade e o direito à moradia
Índice de qualidade de arrecadação do IPTU e atualização de seus valores.
Questão habitacional: a situação do centro de São Paulo.
Exemplo internacional: o imposto sobre o valor da terra.
Tema da próxima edição: Índice de Sigilo Fiscal 2020 da Tax Justice Network.

Participantes desta edição:

Raquel Rolnik, Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo
Pedro de Carvalho, pesquisador e especialista em tributação
Gilberto Perre, Frente Nacional de Prefeitos
Thalyta Alves, Confederação Nacional dos Municípios
Nick Shaxson, Tax Justice Network
Fernando Tulio, Instituto de Arquitetos do Brasil
Fernando Bruno, Universidade São Judas
Carmen Silva, Movimento dos Sem-Teto do Centro
Ivy Farias, jornalista e ouvinte

Conecte-se com a gente!

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Plataformas de áudio: Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Deezer, iTunes.

Press kit – Financial Secrecy Index 2020

Embargoed: 18:00 CET Tuesday 18 February 2020

Please find our research and resources below. Some research and resources will be added in the coming weeks ahead of the launch of the index. All content, resources and information provided and linked to on this page are strictly embargoed for 18:00 CET Tuesday 18 February 2020.

These documents are password protected and require the same password used to access this webpage.

Financial Secrecy Index Ranking
Country briefings (more briefings will be added on a rolling basis)
Country in-depth reports (more briefings will be added on a rolling basis)
Financial Secrecy Index data – excel file (see tutorial video below)
Methodology
Timeline of transparency reforms
Secrecy Indicator summaries (more indicators will be added on a rolling basis)
A recording of webinar on the index is available in English and German on request. Please email [email protected]
Tax Justice Network comment on revised EU blacklist (added 18 Feb)

Watch the tutorial video on using the Financial Secrecy Index data excel file:

Videos: Touring London, the capital of secrecy

After three and a half years of acrimony, Brexit will become a reality in just a few days time. January 31st will be a historic moment, for both Europe and the United Kingdom, marked by jubilant celebrations in some circles and profound misgivings in others. One very small but extremely powerful grouping within British society is likely to be delighted that the independence they have long desired has finally been achieved; alongside a variety of fringe ethno-nationalist organisations that long to stop migrants from coming to Britain, the UK’s bloated, regulation-light finance sector and freemarketeers around the world are excitedly looking forward to Capital being able to move in and out without any limitations or oversight imposed by pesky EU regulations. It remains to be seen whether the EU will use its power to try to scupper their plans although all around the world, those who work for greater social justice and human rights fear that the City of London, with the active support of its allies in the UK government, will move hastily to transform itself into an even more pernicious facilitator of abusive international tax practices, thereby accelerating the race to the bottom among nations on tax, secrecy and regulations.

As the world’s economic elite met in Davos recently to discuss the future of the global economy, a gaggle of international journalists was touring the City of London to find out what Brexit might mean for ordinary people. The Brexit Tax Haven Tour was organised by the Tax Justice Network and the Global Alliance for Tax Justice together with Tax Justice UK, Women’s Budget Group and Womankind Worldwide, taking international press on a walking tour of key sites in the City of London where they heard about the real and imminent threat posed to poorer/plundered and industrialised countries alike by the UK government’s ‘Singapore on the Thames’ strategy.

Speaking at the Bank of England, the Tax Justice Network’s John Christensen explained the peculiar history of this curious institution, which acts as both a central bank and also as a banking regulator, but has done little to counter London’s role as a global money-laundering centre, resolutely ignoring the global risks posed by Britain’s global tax haven network. When considered as a whole, Britain’s network of tax havens and financial secrecy jurisdictions represents the largest and most deleterious tax haven in the world, denying poorer/plundered countries billions of dollars in revenue every year and siphoning away resources urgently needed in all nations for climate change adaptation, economic and social progress and the fulfillment of basic human rights. Look out for the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index 2020 results out soon to see how the UK ranks this time as a global corruption offender.

Following the Bank of England, the walking tour took journalists to the Maternité statue, Aimé-Jules’ 1878 depiction of a French peasant woman breastfeeding, which is nestled discreetly, and without any deliberate irony, behind the rather more imposing Bank and the Royal Exchange. At this stop, Womankind Worldwide’s Roosje Saalbrink explained the disproportionate burden of unpaid care work imposed on women by unjust tax policies, and the danger of this trend being further exacerbated by increased regulatory ‘competition’ among states.

Feminist economist Susan Himmelweit of the Women’s Budget Group then elucidated the role the City of London plays in pillaging resources from poorer countries, and thereby preventing them from providing the basic social services that are fundamental to confronting inequality for women and girls. As she explained, countries that are unable to raise enough revenue from businesses through corporate income taxes often have to resort to implementing higher taxes on working people through more regressive forms of taxation such as VAT, or through myriad fees and special charges paid only by local residents. Women living in poverty, who generally have lower incomes than men, are doubly disadvantaged by such revenue generation measures.

The final stop of the Brexit Tax Haven Tour took us to Guildhall Square, site of the City of London Corporation building, which is the administrative hub of this “city within a city”. At this stop Dereje Alemayehu, Executive Coordinator of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice, explained the machinery of international tax abuse that is managed from the site and the serious threat that the City of London poses, in pursuing its ‘Singapore on the Thames’ ambitions, to become “the capital of financial secrecy”.

As things already stand, countries in the Global South lose one trillion dollars every year because of capital flight and tax dodging. In Africa alone, between US$ 30 and 60 billion per year is transferred illicitly which is equivalent to 40 years of the development funding the continent currently receives every year. These figures are likely to rise post-Brexit.

As the afternoon’s activities drew to a close, and the mega-rich continued their conversations 700 miles away in Davos, a protest illumination bearing the words ‘Tax Haven Britain: A threat to us all,’ appeared first on the City of London Corporation building and then on the Bank of England. It remains to be seen whether the world’s elite will see fit to hear this crucial message. Davos organisers notably opted not to invite economist Rutger Bregman back to this year’s event after he argued, at the previous 2019 meeting, that tax justice was the only way to confront the multiple crises now afflicting the world. Here’s a reminder of his comments which resonated strongly across the world:

You can watch Al Jazeera’s coverage on Bregman’s comments and on the politics of how the media report tax here:

Change always comes from the bottom, never from the top, and citizens must continue to add to the pressure on governments to serve the public interest.

Another Great Depression or tax justice and transparency? The Tax Justice Network January 2020 podcast

The Taxcast kicks off the new decade with:

the French strikes – tax justice and pensions vs financialisation
the EU countries who’ve missed the deadline on publishing registers of real corporate owners
the effect of Brexit on poorer (aka plundered) countries
And the IMF’s stark warnings about the finance curse and another Great Depression

After many requests, we’re also providing a transcript of the programme, (which will not be 100% accurate). Transcript of the Taxcast, January 2020:Download

Featuring:

Simon Bowers of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network
Dereje Alemayehu of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice
Marie Antonelle Joubert of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice
Pascal Debay of the CGT Union Confédération Générale du Travail
Presented and produced by Naomi Fowler

If the situation collapses in Europe then I don’t think the tax havens, secrecy havens and the US will be in any rush to try and repair the situation.”
~ Simon Bowers of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on the failure of some EU States to meet the 10th January 2020 deadline on publishing registers of the real owners of companies

We are in the longest struggle, social conflict in France. Imagine it’s something that is longer than what happened in 1968. What we are afraid of is that it’s a strategy to weaken our system. In France, the social security, all the money in the system of social security is more important than the state budget of France – imagine what some people of the financial place would like to do with that money.”
~ Pascal Debay of the CGT Union Confédération Générale du Travail on the French strikes

It’s really a question that arises now in France how all those governments and presidents that we have are not chasing tax avoiders, the big multinationals. The big multinationals, people know them and when they find out that those multinationals pay virtually no taxes in France they think it’s appalling. Whether its public schools, public health, public infrastructures, the justice system, and pensions, Macron could fund them with a proper tax justice policy.”
~ Marie Antonelle Joubert of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice on the French strikes

I’m afraid with the massive victory they got on Brexit, they are emboldened to be the capital of international secrecy. And I’m afraid they will make things worse for the rest of the world without benefiting the UK economy.”
~ Dereje Alemayehu of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice on the City of London finance sector and British government policy post-Brexit

There’s ample evidence that inequality harms the economy…inequality is now actually threatening to topple the whole thing and turn the whole thing over.”
~ John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network on the head of the IMF’s warnings on another Great Depression