Now you see me, now you don’t: using citizenship and residency by investment to avoid automatic exchange of banking information

On February 19th, the OECD launched a consultation entitled “Preventing abuse of residence by investment schemes to circumvent the CRS”. It was about time. Since 2014, we have written several papers and blogs (here, here, here, here and here) explaining how residency and citizenship schemes offered by countries can be abused to avoid automatic exchange of bank account information established by the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS). Continue reading “Now you see me, now you don’t: using citizenship and residency by investment to avoid automatic exchange of banking information” →

Plazo abierto: Conferencia anual #tjn18, Lima

Click here to read this in English

El plazo de inscripción está ahora abierto para nuestra conferencia anual, que este año tendra lugar en Lima del 13 al 14 de junio. ¡Regístrese ahora y lo veremos allí! Los detalles completos, incluido el programa, están a continuación, junto con los contactos para cualquier pregunta o comentario.

La conferencia 2018 de la Tax Justice Network, que forma parte de una serie anual de conferencias que se remonta al 2003 y que es organizada conjuntamente con la Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) y Latindadd, mostrará la investigación de vanguardia de la región y otras latitudes, reuniendo a investigadores, académicos, periodistas, personal político de organizaciones de la sociedad civil, consultores y profesionales, políticos electos y sus investigadores, funcionarios gubernamentales y de organizaciones internacionales. El propósito es facilitar la investigación, el debate y la discusión de mentalidad abierta, generar ideas y propuestas para informar y dar forma a las iniciativas políticas y a la movilización. La conferencia se llevará a cabo en español e inglés, con interpretación directa e inversa.

Tema de la Conferencia

Los impuestos son una herramienta crucial para combatir las desigualdades, redistribuir los ingresos y recaudar ingresos para el gasto público. Pero la soberanía de los Estados para llevar a cabo tales políticas se ve ampliamente socavada por la capacidad de las elites y las empresas multinacionales para ocultar o eliminar sus ingresos de la red impositiva; por los patrones más amplios de corrupción; y por su presión en contra de las políticas de impuestos directos sobre la renta, los beneficios y las ganancias de capital. Si bien se reconoce que América Latina ha tenido logros importantes al revertir el crecimiento de la desigualdad de ingresos en los últimos años, esa tendencia puede debilitarse, y muchos países de la región siguen exhibiendo una alta desigualdad y una redistribución débil.

Los Paradise Papers han confirmado una vez más cómo los individuos ricos ocultan sus activos y flujos de ingresos en jurisdicciones de secreto financiero (“paraísos fiscales”), y cómo las compañías multinacionales son capaces de reducir su obligaciones tributarias a través de una serie de formas en gran medida ocultas, aprovechando los vacíos en las normas tributarias internacionales para trasladar sus ingresos al extranjero, y también haciendo que los gobiernos se enfrenten entre sí para obtener exenciones fiscales. Los gobiernos también pueden ser reacios o incapaces de imponer medidas fiscales verdaderamente progresistas frente a la resistencia de las élites.

Pero el mundo está cambiando. El fracaso del proyecto de la OCDE sobre Erosión de Base imponible y traslado de beneficios (BEPS, por sus siglas en inglés) para reducir la evasión y elusión fiscal multinacional ha llevado a una mayor presión para que se produzcan cambios reales en las reglas, con países de la región respondiendo de diversas maneras – con algunas economías importantes buscando su ingreso en la OCDE, y otras como Ecuador centrándose completamente en las opciones de la ONU para que un foro más representativo considere cambios en las reglas. Mientras tanto, los esfuerzos para poner fin a la propiedad secreta han progresado significativamente, aunque la mayoría de los países que no pertenecen a la OCDE siguen excluidos de los acuerdos para el intercambio automático de información financiera, y los registros públicos de propiedad real para empresas, fideicomisos y fundaciones no están todavía muy extendidos. Argentina, que preside el G20 en el 2018, tiene la oportunidad de mostrar un liderazgo dinámico en nombre de la inclusión.

Para avanzar en la lucha contra las poderosas desigualdades que socavan los derechos humanos, entre ellas los de las mujeres y los grupos etno-linguísticos marginados, es preciso abordar estos importantes desafíos políticos a nivel nacional, regional y mundial.

 

Agenda Provisional

PRIMER DIA – 13 de Junio de 2018

08h30 – 09h00 Registro y café

09h00 – 09h30 Plenaria: Bienvenida, introducción y marco general: Desigualdad e injusticia fiscal #tjn18

09h30 – 11h00

Primera sesión plenaria: Desigualdades y justicia fiscal

Moderador: Dereje Alemayehu (Global Alliance for Tax Justice, Ethiopia)

11h00 – 11h30 Café

11h30 – 13h00

Segunda sesión paralela A: Justicia Fiscal: Investigaciones teóricas

Moderador: pendiente de determinar

Segunda sesión paralela B: Exenciones fiscales y carrera a la baja

Moderador: pendiente de determinar

13h00 – 14h00 Almuerzo

14h00 – 15h30

Tercera sesión paralela A: Justicia Fiscal desafío de las desigualdades

Moderador: pendiente de determinar

Tercera sesión paralela B: Esconder la riqueza individual: Viejos y nuevos desafíos

Moderador: pendiente de determinar

15h30 – 16h00 Receso

16h00 – 17h30 Cuarta session plenaria: Justicia Fiscal y derechos de las mujeres

Moderador: pendiente de determinar

 

DIA DOS – 14 de Junio de 2018

08h50 – 09h00 Bienvenida Segundo día

09h00 – 10h30 Quinta session plenaria: Fiscalidad y género (Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Bolivia and Venezuela)

Moderador: Maria Valdes Fernandes (FES)

10h30 – 11h00 Café

11h00 – 12h30

Sexta sesión paralela A: El aporte fiscal de la minería y comentarios sobre la erosión de la base gravable y traslado de beneficios en la industria extractiva.

Moderador: Victor Garzon (GIZ, Germany)

Sexta sesión paralela B: Comercio e injusticia tributaria

Moderador: pendiente de determinar

12h30 – 14h00 Almuerzo

14h00 – 15h00

Sétima Sesión paralela: A: Lavado de dinero: Luces sobre Kenia

Moderador: pendiente de determinar

Sétima Sesión paralela B: Flujos financieros ilícitos: Estimaciones y casos de estudio

Moderador: pendiente de determinar

15h00 – 15h30 Café

15h30 – 17h00 Octava session plenaria: Análisis internacional de la justicia fiscal

Moderador: pendiente de determinar

17h00 – 17h30 Sesión de cierre: Reflexiones and una mirada adelante 

 

Inscripción

Español: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/paraiso-perdidodesigualdad-e-injusticia-fiscal-esp-registro-tickets-44017360109

Ingles: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/paradise-lost-inequality-and-tax-injustice-eng-registration-tickets-43888237901

Comuníquese con Claudia Kremer – [email protected] si tiene preguntas, comentarios o inquietudes acerca del evento. Si desea comunicarse en inglés, envié sus preguntas a Fariya Mohiuddin – [email protected]

Registration open for annual conference #tjn18, Lima

Haga click aquí para la versión en Español

Registration is now open for our annual conference, which this year will be held in Lima on 13-14 June. Sign up now, and we’ll see you there! Full details including the programme are below, along with contacts for any questions or comments.

The 2018 conference of the Tax Justice Network, part of an annual series dating back to 2003 and co-organised with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) and Latindadd, will showcase cutting-edge research from the region and beyond, bringing together researchers, academics, journalists, policy staff of civil society organisations, consultants and professionals, elected politicians and their researchers, government and international organisation officials. The purpose is to facilitate research, open-minded debate and discussion, and to generate ideas and proposals to inform and shape political initiatives and mobilisation. The conference will be held in Spanish, Portuguese and English, with full translation.

Conference Theme

Tax is a crucial tool to challenge inequalities, redistributing incomes and raising revenue for important public spending. But the sovereignty of states to pursue such policies is comprehensively undermined by the ability of elites and multinational companies to hide or otherwise remove their income from the tax net; through broader patterns of corruption; and by their lobbying against policies for direct taxation of income, profits and capital gains. And while Latin America is widely recognised as having had a period of success in reversing the growth of income inequality in recent years, that trend may be weakening – and many countries in the region continue to exhibit both high inequality and only weak redistribution.

The Paradise Papers have confirmed once against how wealthy individuals hide their assets and income streams in financial secrecy jurisdictions (‘tax havens’), and how multinational companies are able to reduce their tax liability in a range of largely hidden ways, exploiting the gaping flaws in international tax rules to shift their income abroad, and also playing governments against each other to obtain tax breaks. Governments may also be unwilling or unable to impose genuinely progressive tax measures in the face of elite resistance.

But the world is changing. The failure of the OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project to curtail multinational tax avoidance has led to greater pressure for real changes in the rules, with countries in the region responding in a range of ways – with some major economies seeking OECD entry, and others such as Ecuador putting their full focus on UN options for a more fully representative forum to consider rule changes. Meanwhile, efforts to end secret ownership have made significant progress – although most non-OECD countries remain excluded from arrangements for the automatic exchange of financial information, and public registers of beneficial ownership for companies, trusts and foundations are not yet widespread. Argentina, chairing the G20 in 2018, has an opportunity to show dynamic leadership in the name of inclusion.

These critical policy challenges must be addressed at national, regional and global levels, if progress is to be made against the powerful inequalities that undermine human rights – including importantly those of women and marginalised ethnolinguistic groups.

Provisional Programme

DAY ONE – 13 June 2018

08h30 – 09h00 Registration and coffee

09h00 – 09h30 Plenary: Welcome and introductions: Desigualdad y injusticia fiscal #tjn18

09h30 – 11h00 Plenary session One: Inequalities and tax justice

Chair: Dereje Alemayehu (Global Alliance for Tax Justice, Ethiopia)

11h00 – 11h30 Coffee

11h30 – 13h00

Parallel Session 2A: Tax justice: Theoretical inquiries

Chair: TBD

Parallel Session 2B: Tax breaks and the race to the bottom

Chair: TBD

13h00 – 14h00 Lunch

14h00 – 15h30

Parallel session 3A: Tax justice challenges of inequalities

Chair: TBD

Parallel Session 3B: Hiding individual wealth: Old and new challenges

Chair: TBD

15h30 – 16h00 Tea break

16h00 – 17h00 Plenary session Four: Tax justice and women’s rights

Chair: TBD

 

DAY TWO – 14 June 2018

08h50 – 09h00 Welcome to day two

09h00 – 10h30 Plenary session Five: Taxation and gender (Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Bolivia and Venezuela)

Chair: Maria Valdes Fernandes (FES, Colombia)

10h30 – 11h00 Coffee

11h00 – 12h30

Parallel session 6A: El aporte fiscal de la minería y comentarios sobre la erosión de la base gravable y traslado de beneficios en la industria extractiva.

Chair: Victor Garzon (GIZ, Germany)

Parallel Session 6B: Trade and tax injustices

Chair: TBD

12h30 – 14h00 Lunch

14h00 – 15h00

Parallel Session 7A: Money-laundering: Spotlight on Kenya

Chair: TBD

Parallel Session 7B: Illicit financial flows: Estimates and case studies

Chair: TBD

15h00 – 15h30 Coffee break

15h30 – 17h00 Plenary session Eight: International analyses of tax justice

Chair: TBD

17h00 – 17h30 Closing Session: Reflections and looking ahead

 

How can I contact the organiser with any questions?

Please contact Fariya Mohiuddin- [email protected] with any questions, comments, and concerns that you may have. If you would like to communicate in Spanish, please direct your questions to Claudia Kremer – [email protected]. 

Registration details

English: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/paradise-lost-inequality-and-tax-injustice-eng-registration-tickets-43888237901

Spanish: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/paraiso-perdidodesigualdad-e-injusticia-fiscal-esp-registro-tickets-44017360109

 

 

 

Video: discussion on tax revenue losses, Apple’s tax avoidance and ‘state aid’

We’re sharing here the opening panel discussion of the June 2017 European Financial Congress, Eastern Europe’s largest finance congress in Gdansk, Poland.

The theme of the panel was “Tax solidarity in the world and in the EU” and it features visiting Professor at Oxford University Philip Baker QC and the Tax Justice Network’s Markus Meinzer discussing tax revenue losses to Poland due to corporate tax avoidance, Apple’s tax avoidance and the related ‘state aid’ ruling. The discussion considers the following key questions: Continue reading “Video: discussion on tax revenue losses, Apple’s tax avoidance and ‘state aid’” →

Bring in new tax to curb avoidance by multinationals: new report

A new report out today by Grace Blakeley from the progressive policy think tank IPPR argues for a re-balancing of the business taxation system. Titled Fair dues: Rebalancing business taxation in the UK, the report proposes:
a series of reforms aimed at achieving a fairer burden of taxation between different kinds of businesses and taxpayers, while supporting employment, wages and investment. It proposes a fiscally-neutral increase in the rate of corporation tax, alongside a reduction in employers’ National Insurance contributions; and an increase in the base for corporation tax through a simplification and reduction in reliefs and allowances. It also proposes the introduction of an Alternative Minimum Corporation Tax in order to reduce profit shifting by multinational corporations, alongside greater support for international efforts to combat tax avoidance.”
Despite its focus on the UK, there are ideas here for other countries to consider. We’re sharing a summary of the report below, and the full version is available here.

Continue reading “Bring in new tax to curb avoidance by multinationals: new report” →

Tax Justice is a feminist issue: call on governments to act

We celebrate International Women’s Day today by reaffirming tax as a feminist issue. In advocating for greater tax transparency and accountability we, as feminists, are not only demanding multilateral progressive tax policies and a global financial architecture that recognises and disaggregates by gender, but a complete rethink of the orthodoxy; of what fair taxation policies should look like for greater rights and equality for women. Today we wholeheartedly join the Global Alliance for Tax Justice‘s call to governments for tax justice to advance women’s rights and economic equality, which we share here: Continue reading “Tax Justice is a feminist issue: call on governments to act” →

Taxing water and infrastructure in the UK

Michael Gove, the UK’s Environment Secretary had some harsh words for the water industry recently.

“They have shielded themselves from scrutiny, hidden behind complex financial structures, avoided paying taxes, have rewarded the already well-off, kept charges higher than they needed to be.”

The bit he missed from his speech was, “and the government I am a part of has encouraged them to do exactly that.” Continue reading “Taxing water and infrastructure in the UK” →

Video: the high cost of finance and the finance curse

In this film Dr Gerald Epstein discusses his work on how an oversized financial services sector such as the City of London, or Wall Street, can extract wealth from an economy, leading to lower growth, higher indebtedness, and rising inequality. This talk was given as a keynote lecture at a research workshop on the Finance Curse co-organised by the Tax Justice Network and the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI). Continue reading “Video: the high cost of finance and the finance curse” →

Edition 2 of the Tax Justice Network Arabic monthly podcast/radio show الجباية ببساطة

Here’s the second edition of our new monthly Arabic podcast/radio show Taxes Simply الجباية ببساطة contributing to tax justice public debate around the world. (In Arabic below) Taxes simply الجباية ببساطة is produced and presented by Walid Ben Rhouma, and is available for listeners to download and it’s available for free to radio networks to broadcast across the region. You can join the programme on Facebook and on Twitter. Continue reading “Edition 2 of the Tax Justice Network Arabic monthly podcast/radio show الجباية ببساطة” →

Guest blog: Stopping public contracts for tax cheats

We’re pleased to share this important blog from the Fair Tax Mark‘s Chief Executive Paul Monaghan, orginally posted here. The Fair Tax Mark’s inception was supported by the Tax Justice Network and it continues to do great work. As Ed Mayo, Secretary General of Co-operatives UK summarises very nicely,

Fair tax is the new fair trade…All it takes is for consumers, people who are taxpayers themselves, to back the companies that pay what they owe.”

And that’s what the Fair Tax Mark supports so very well, helping to even out the playing field by certifying and celebrating those businesses that are doing the right thing with their Fair Tax Mark Award. We interviewed Paul Monaghan on tax justice and public procurement in our monthly podcast and radio show the Taxcast a while back. The original post with full details is here, and his interview is cued up and shared at the bottom of this page.

Here, Paul looks at critical developments in the fight for tax justice in public procurement processes – which is the focus of growing attention in the movement… Continue reading “Guest blog: Stopping public contracts for tax cheats” →

Advance tax rulings: Publish or abolish?

Advance(d) tax rulings give multinationals a degree of certainty – but at what cost to tax justice?

A range of cases, largely based on leaked documents rather than public disclosures, reveal two major issues: large revenue losses, and a clear risk of corruption. Would mandatory publication be sufficient to curtail these risks? Or is the entire approach so open to abuse that it would be better to abolish advance rulings entirely?

Continue reading “Advance tax rulings: Publish or abolish?” →

Guest blog: Tax Avoidance and Evasion in Africa

We’re pleased to share this blog post (first published here) written by Nataliya Mykhalchenko for the Review of African Political Economy:

Tax avoidance, tax evasion, tax heavens, illicit financial flows and global tax governance are real buzzwords that have come to dominate current international political and financial domains. Tax avoidance, understood as the use of the so-called ‘loopholes’ in the tax legislation to reduce one’s tax payments increasingly tops news charts. The recent EU’s blacklist of 17 tax havens, last year’s Paradise Papers and the 2016 Panama Papers are among the starkest examples. Recent waves of tax dodging scandals including those of tax evasion – the use of unlawful means to escape paying tax – pushed many governments globally towards implementing various structural changes to taxation systems. Moreover, there is a growing call towards making the ‘fight’ against the exploitation of tax regulations ‘a global effort’ and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD), the UNDP Tax Inspectors Without Borders and the Declaration on Automatic Exchange of Information are amongst the most prominent measures of this kind. Continue reading “Guest blog: Tax Avoidance and Evasion in Africa” →

Job vacancy: TJN Head of Communications

We’re hiring again! Details of the new Head of Communications role below, and job information pack to download here.

Key facts:

Application closing date: 30 March 2018
Start date: May 2018
Reports to: Chief Executive
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time (37.5 hours per week)
Salary: £50,000
Location: Home-based (anywhere in the world)

Continue reading “Job vacancy: TJN Head of Communications” →

The killing of the American Dream and Trump’s Tax Reform in our February 2018 podcast

In this month’s Taxcast: we look at the United States, Trump’s tax reforms and the killing of the American Dream. Plus: as we see yet another school shooting, should the powerful National Rifle Association continue to be a tax-exempt, non-profit organisation? Also, we discuss ongoing state-capture in Malta as the European Banking Authority investigates Pilatus bank, the subject of murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia’s investigations. Can the Malta Financial Services Authority possibly be ‘fully equipped and free from conflicts of interest to perform its supervisory duties’?

Featuring:

Continue reading “The killing of the American Dream and Trump’s Tax Reform in our February 2018 podcast” →

Exciting news for tax justice in the UK: the battle is on…

We’re pleased to be introducing Robert Palmer, the new Executive Director of Tax Justice UK, a sister organisation of the Tax Justice Network:

For the last ten years public spending in the UK has been squeezed, while the government has cut taxes. The UK aspires to Scandinavian levels of public services with US American levels of taxation. The problem is not that we spend too much money, but that we raise too little.

I believe we need to do more to make the case for the positive role that tax can play in society. Now more than ever we need an organisation championing a fair tax system that will benefit everyone in the UK. That’s why I’m really excited to start as the Executive Director of Tax Justice UK (TJUK).

Continue reading “Exciting news for tax justice in the UK: the battle is on…” →

Inverted Maps: The Corruption Perception Index and the Financial Secrecy Index

On February 22nd, 2018, Transparency International published the latest edition of the Corruption Perception Index, less than a month after the publication of TJN’s Financial Secrecy Index.

Comparing Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and TJN’s Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) may be like comparing apples to oranges. Not only do they measure different things, but the way they measure them is completely different: the Corruption Perception Index, as its names indicates, it’s based on people’s perceptions. The FSI in contrast, considers objectively verifiable criteria, such as a country’s actual laws or whether a country signed relevant multilateral conventions or whether they comply with international standards (e.g. anti-money laundering).

Nevertheless, visually, both indexes reveal an interesting story.

The Corruption Perception Index suggests that Africa, Latin America and Asia are perceived as the most corrupt (dark red), by the international and country experts who participate in the surveys that are aggregated in the CPI. If local corruption in those countries were actually as bad as this small group of people perceive it to be, it would raise the question: who is enabling that corruption? Who benefits? Where might the crimes and the proceeds be hidden? The Financial Secrecy Index answers that question: countries in Europe and North America, where local corruption is perceived to be low, are objectively the worst offenders in enabling global corruption and illicit financial flows.

Source: Author’s elaboration based on Transparency International’s map and 23degrees’s map of TJN’s Financial Secrecy Index

Conference Report: Platform for Collaboration on Tax First Global Conference on Taxation and SDGs 14 -16th February, 2018

Subject to resource availability

The Platform for Collaboration on Tax held its inaugural conference in New York last week (14-16 February, 2018). With the backdrop of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) this collaborative initiative choreographed by Platform Partners – International Monetary Fund (IMF), Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), United Nations (UN) and the World Bank (WB) – reminded us that “an era of unprecedented international cooperation on tax is underway with the implementation of Automatic Exchange of Information, the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project, and the strengthening of the United Nations Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters—all creating new opportunities for the enhanced participation of developing countries in international tax policy discussions and institutions” (Conference Statement, 16 February).

With the IMF, World Bank, OECD and UN holding the power and influence needed for achieving success in the SDGs, you would hope to see a sense of determination or a set of discussions which invited meaningful debate and robust critique. Cue dampened expectations.

The conference had three fundamental problems:

Missing voices

Civil Society, private sector, governments and academia – all present, but not lost on many was the relative absence of developing countries on plenary panels, or worse still a platform given to the Panamanian Minister of Finance lauding progress made to the benefit of the poorest.

Imbalance

Among other things a snapshot review of those with a voice shows that there were 4 CSO speakers out of a total of 74 platform slots (including moderators)

…that of those 74, just 26 (35%) were women….

…that of the 35 plenary speakers, just 10 were women…

…that of the 14 panels, 4 were all male panels (manels)…

…that of the 74 platform slots, 48 were taken by people based in the OECD (although only 37 of OECD nationality)…

SDGs – from A to B:

Most befuddling and disappointing of all was the absence of any substantive analysis of the ambition, potential and challenges presented by the SDGs – the ‘scope of the problems facing developing countries as they try to achieve sustainable development’. As the Platform outcome statement says “Achieving these goals requires enormous financial resources” but no glimmer of hope through a recalibrating of the international tax and financing system, how we could get from A (now) to B (2030). Had developing country representatives and civil society been given a ‘platform’ (excuse the pun) and had there been a political openness and frankness which many in civil society felt was missing, a real collaboration might have enthusiastically begun.

This was experienced as a carefully choreographed set of discussions frequently out of step with its stated purpose. It gave us an outcome statement with three areas of work on which to go forward “subject to resource availability”:

· Strengthening international tax cooperation

· Building Institutions through Medium Term Revenue Strategies

· Promoting partnerships and stakeholder engagement

And a route map of 14 points of action including a welcome commitment to:

“analyze and report on the spillovers and opportunities from changes in the international tax environment on and for developing countries”.

We would expect that the Platform partners will, as part of the spillover analysis and ensuring important policy alignment, use the opportunity disaggregate data which illuminates the gender impact of taxation policy and law in one jurisdiction on another.

Overall the conference reminded us all of one of the fundamental problems facing tax cooperation. We can have all the technical platforms we like. But unless there is a high level political commitment to taking the difficult steps to a fairer tax system, ending the race to the bottom, and the full inclusion of developing countries in discussions of how international tax policy is crafted, the ruminations of technocrats will have little hope in achieving the ambition of the SDGs

The B-Team: Lowering the bar for tax transparency?

The B Team, the leading global group for responsible business, has released a report: ‘A New Bar for Responsible Tax‘. To our great sadness, it moves the bar in one direction – towards the bottom.

When the B Team first got in touch to discuss their plan to work with major multinationals to establish a new standard of tax transparency, we were excited. The one thing lacking so far in the process towards public country-by-country reporting has been a champion among the major multinationals – and that’s exactly who the B Team work with. Moreover, they have made some genuine progress towards beneficial ownership transparency for their own group structures. We felt their staff were on the right track, and we hoped that they would be able to take the business members with them.

It soon became clear that the members were less keen. But even so, the report which has now been released is desperately disappointing.   Continue reading “The B-Team: Lowering the bar for tax transparency?” →

Our February 2018 Spanish language podcast: Justicia ImPositiva, nuestro podcast, febrero 2018

Welcome to this month’s latest podcast and radio programme in Spanish with Marcelo Justo and Marta Nuñez, downloaded and broadcast on radio networks across Latin America and Spain. ¡Bienvenidos y bienvenidas a nuestro podcast y programa radiofónica! (abajo en castellano).

In the February 2018 programme:

Continue reading “Our February 2018 Spanish language podcast: Justicia ImPositiva, nuestro podcast, febrero 2018” →

Job vacancy: Researcher for the Tax Justice Network (2)

We’re hiring again! Details below and download your job information pack here.

Please note – this is a separate researcher role from the one advertised on 18 January.

Key facts:

Application closing date: 5 March 2018
Start date: April 2018
Reports to: Director, Tax Justice and Human Rights
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time (37.5 hours per week)
Salary: £30,000
Location: Home-based (anywhere in the world)

Continue reading “Job vacancy: Researcher for the Tax Justice Network (2)” →

Africa’s battle against financial secrecy: Financial Secrecy Index

How are Switzerland, the United States, and the Caymans working against African efforts to stem the tide of illicit financial flows? They’re among the worst offenders in the Tax Justice Network’s 2018 Financial Secrecy Index.

The index was launched at the end of January 2018 and weights a country’s secrecy score against its global share of financial services. This means that countries that top the rankings have a far higher risk for illicit financial flows running through their systems than countries that may have a higher level of secrecy, but have much smaller-scale financial services. 20 key indicators are used to assess secrecy levels, including banking and tax court secrecy, country-by-country reporting compliance, ownership disclosure rules, and tax administration capacity. Continue reading “Africa’s battle against financial secrecy: Financial Secrecy Index” →

Illicit financial flows and the tax haven and offshore secrecy system

We’re sharing below the work of one of our senior advisers, Sol Picciotto, Emeritus Professor of Law at Lancaster University on defining illicit financial flows. You can also hear him interviewed on this subject in our podcast:

Illicit financial flows and the tax haven and offshore secrecy system

The importance of reducing, and eventually eliminating, illicit financial flows, has now been recognised in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda of the United Nations, as key to ensuring good governance, as well as contributing to the domestic resource mobilisation necessary for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, adopted in 2015.[1] However, there is now some debate about what is covered by this term. Continue reading “Illicit financial flows and the tax haven and offshore secrecy system” →