How come Mauritius is the biggest foreign investor in India?

We’re pleased to share a new study by Suraj Jaiswal for the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability on Foreign Direct Investment in India and the role of tax havens. As their summary of this study says:

Governments across the world are trying to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as a policy tool to promote growth, employment, etc. India has also adopted policies for promoting FDI and has seen significant increase in FDI in the decade of 2000 and onwards. In this context, the paper looks at the FDI flows to India between 2004-14. It analyses where the FDI is coming from, especially countries who are regarded as tax havens such as Mauritius and Singapore, and tries to explain the reasons behind it.

The paper makes use of a unique dataset which identifies the ultimate parent/controlling entity of the individual FDI inflows, and thus able to identify which FDI inflow is coming directly from the home country of investor and which are routed through the other country. To find the reasons behind the routing of FDI through a third country, it analyses the secrecy aspect as well as the tax agreement of that country with India to find the linkages between secrecy, tax agreements and routing of FDI to India.”

Continue reading “How come Mauritius is the biggest foreign investor in India?” →

Regulation of Beneficial Ownership in Latin America and the Caribbean

My paper – Andres Knobel – on “Regulation of Beneficial Ownership in Latin America and the Caribbean” which I wrote for the Inter-American Development Bank is now available in Spanish and English here. The paper, published in November 2017, provides an explanation on the concept, obstacles and nuances of the definition of beneficial ownership. It also mentions typical loopholes, the differences in regulation when it comes to legal entities or trusts, and what to do when the ownership chain contains a mix of different types of legal structures.

For newcomers, the paper also explains the importance of beneficial ownership for tackling many of the worst type of abuses and crimes. The annex, for instance, shows how beneficial ownership could be key to resolving a scheme involving tax evasion, corruption, money laundering, round-tripping and market abuse:

The second part of the paper assesses beneficial ownership regulation in 26 countries, quoting each country’s definitions of beneficial owners of companies and trusts, and assessing whether those definitions are compliant with international standards (e.g. what threshold they use, do they cover all the parties to a trust, etc).

Most of the Tax Justice Network’s work (e.g. the Financial Secrecy Index) considers beneficial ownership registration with a government authority to be the only acceptable standard. This paper checks availability of beneficial ownership regulation in different countries, and whether they are compliant with the OECD’s Global Forum’s and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)’s much less demanding standards. According to these organisations, as long as beneficial ownership is available and authorities may ask for it, that’s considered good enough.

Hopefully in the near future, both the OECD and the FATF will join us, and other civil society organisations in considering that the only acceptable standard should be beneficial ownership registration in public registries available in open data format.

Welcome oligarchs, erode democracy: our March 2018 podcast

In this month’s Taxcast: They say history is written by the victors. So how can we rethink the way we use words about tax havens that reflect the reality of what’s really happening? We talk to Alain Deneault about his new book in which he writes about ‘laundering with language’ – Legalising Theft: a short guide to tax havens.

Plus:

Produced and presented by Naomi Fowler, featuring John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network and author, philosopher and sociologist Alain Deneault. Continue reading “Welcome oligarchs, erode democracy: our March 2018 podcast” →

PRESS RELEASE: European Commission digital tax plan is a nail in the coffin for OECD tax rules

The Tax Justice Network welcomes the European Commission’s new measures to combat tax abuses in the digital economy – in particular, the intention to ensure taxes are paid in the places where business is done, and where profits are really made.

For the last decade, some of the worst offenders in the world of corporate tax dodging have been the digital giants, companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. These companies present a particular problem for governments, in that so much of their business takes place online, making it easier for them to locate their profits offshore.

Today’s main announcement is the introduction of a ‘Digital Services Tax’. This short-term measure will apply a 3% tax on the revenues of companies related to specific online services, introducing the concept of a virtual ‘permanent establishment’ so that companies become taxable in jurisdictions where they have users – even if there is no employment or tangible assets.

An analysis of several major digital services companies operating in Europe for the Tax Justice Network reveals that such a tax would be roughly equivalent to an effective corporation tax rate of around 10%.

The European Commission estimates that digital services companies currently pay an effective tax rate of just 9%, whilst companies operating in the rest of the economy pay an effective rate of 23%.

However, there have been many well publicised cases demonstrating how some companies have used accounting tricks to get their tax rate down to close to zero. As such, the new measures will set a limit, preventing the most extreme abuse.

In addition, the Commission has announced a longer-term aim to align profits of digital companies much more fully with the location of their real economic activity. In keeping with the ongoing work to introduce a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base in the EU, such a measure would ensure that taxable profits were allocated in proportion to EU members’ share of activity.

This confirms the intention of the EU to break, comprehensively, with the OECD’s international tax rules – which require adherence to economically illogical transfer pricing rules, with profit divided between multinational groups’ subsidiaries on the basis of contrived, theoretical ‘arm’s length prices’.

Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, said:

“The European Commission’s digital tax directives are a welcome step. Not only do they put an immediate limit on the scale of these companies’ tax abuses, but they also set the course for the radical shift in international tax rules that we have campaigned for since our formal inception in 2003 – namely, the abandonment of the arm’s length principle and the switch towards unitary taxation of multinationals.”

Liz Nelson, a director of the Tax Justice Network, said:

“The EU is flexing its muscles, acting against OECD norms to protect its tax base, because it has the power to do so. But the whole world needs to make that shift, so that lower-income countries too can protect their tax base and support the progressive realisation of human rights to which the UN Sustainable Development Goals framework commits us all. Ultimately, this requires that tax policy be set in an international forum, breaking the rich countries’ hegemony, in order to allow all countries to act against multinationals’ tax abuse.”

New report: German-African research linking illicit and criminal financial flows with global poverty

The Tax Justice & Poverty research project is a co-operative effort between three institutions run by the Jesuit Order of the Catholic Church: the Jesuitenmission based in Nuremberg (Germany), the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection in Lusaka (Zambia) and the Jesuit Hakimani Centre in Nairobi (Kenya). Work started in 2012 and Dr. Jörg Alt of Jesuitenmission summarises some of the conclusions in this short version of the main report on their attempt to bring together aspects of joint interest arising from work in three very different countries. Continue reading “New report: German-African research linking illicit and criminal financial flows with global poverty” →

Our March 2018 Spanish language podcast: Justicia ImPositiva, nuestro podcast, marzo 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 this month’s programme:

Continue reading “Our March 2018 Spanish language podcast: Justicia ImPositiva, nuestro podcast, marzo 2018” →

Questions raised over offshore dealings of Serbian PM’s former company.

The Croatian political magazine, Nacional, is running a story which implicates the International Finance Corporation in a deal involving offshore companies and more than a hint of a conflict of interest in Serbia. One of the main protagonists in the deal is the Serbian Prime Minister, Ana Brnabic.

As with most offshore stories, the long and complicated twists and turns of the strings of offshore companies involve can be hard to follow but some facts emerge that at the very least highlight the severe deficiencies in the management of the international development finance sector in managing risk in their investments.

The basic story is as follows:

Prior to entering the Serbian Government, Ana Brnabic worked for an energy company that was investing in wind farms in Serbia, Continental Wind Serbia. Continental Wind had an exceptionally poor relationship with the Serbian Government. In 2015 the company was involved in a major scandal when the wife of its founder, Mark Crandall (one of the founders of Trafigura), was recorded in a phone conversation telling an opposition politician in Serbia that Continental had been asked to pay a bribe to the director of Serbia’s national energy distribution company in order to connect their wind farm to the grid. The man who was alleged to have requested the bribe was a close friend of the then Prime Minister of Serbia, Alexander Vucic.

Very shortly afterwards, Vucic visited Washington DC and a group of Congressmen organised a letter to Vice-President Joe Biden outlining allegations of corrupt practices in the country under his leadership. Vucic suggested that Continental was behind the letter, and wanted to use it as leverage to help win projects, saying: “Some want to build wind farms in Serbia where there was no proper regulation, with the idea of selling electricity at three times the market price…. They wished to win this deal at any cost”.

Brnabic, as the head of Continental in Serbia held a press conference denying that the company had been involved in any wrongdoing, stating that the bribery allegations were false. The scandal ended there.

Ten months later, in August, 2016 Brnabic was appointed by Vucic to be the Minister of Public Administration (taking over from the sister of Crandall’s wife). The following year she was surprisingly elected by the Serbian Parliament to become Prime Minister, when Vucic became President. During that time the relationship between Continental and the Government of Serbia had suddenly thawed. One affiliate of Continental won a 12 year contract to sell energy into the Serbian grid at a fixed price. Before the contract was signed the government amended its legislation to introduce greater price incentives for wind power.

This culminated in the launch of a major wind power project in 2017, funded by 190m Euro in loans from the International Finance Corporation and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The project launch was attended by Alexander Vucic himself.

Questions to answer

This kind of potential conflict of interest – political decisions being key to private returns, and individuals associated with private companies holding high political positions – should raise eyebrows. Add to this the fact that all of these investments were structured though highly murky offshore structures – involving shell companies and trusts in Malta, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Guernsey and Delaware. Structures that Ms Brnabic appears to have been, at the very least, aware of.

One might think, what on earth is the IFC doing getting involved in such a deal? As we have reported before, the IFC is all too comfortable with the use of tax havens to structure its investments. In this case a spokesperson for the IFC told Nacional:

“As with all projects funded by IFC, IFC undertook a thorough due diligence of the project, including the legitimate use of intermediary jurisdictions, to ensure that it meets all IFC investment criteria.”

The EBRD said:

“As with all projects funded by the EBRD, we undertook a thorough due diligence of the project, including the legitimate use of intermediary jurisdictions, to ensure that it meets all our investment criteria.”

Now there is no evidence that Ana Brnabic personally benefited from the deals between her former employer and the government, and she has said that she was not involved in any decisions made by the government of Serbia that concerned these investments by Continental.

Her statement to Nacional was as follows:

“I was not involved in creating the ownership structure outside of Serbia and I have no idea what it is… I have reported to the Anti-Corruption Agency that I was the CWS Director and that I do not want to have any influence on any decisions that generally concern the policy of renewable sources in Serbia. As the Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, I absolutely was not involved or had no contact points with the legislation concerning renewable energy sources…. I was not personally involved in drafting and accepting regulation on state incentives as I was not in the Government at the time….

All taxes were paid to the Republic of Serbia and we always tried to be a socially responsible company, as best confirmed by numerous donations and contracts with local government that part of the company’s profit is paid directly to the budget of the municipalities.”

But isn’t the real issue this: Large scale infrastructure projects rely on key government decisions in order to be viable, at which point the owner is granted stable, often taxpayer-funded, long term profits. In this particular case the benefits appear to have been particularly generous. In a world where people move between the public and private sector frequently, and particularly in smaller economies where the pool of people working at the top of government and in business is small, there exists the potential for huge conflicts of interest.

Policy responses

In this context there needs to be a much greater obligation placed on these companies to be transparent. It is not good enough for the IFC and EBRD to simply say ‘we looked at it, and trust us, it’s all fine’.

Large international financial institutions should use the market power they have to drive out financial secrecy, not to acquiesce with it – otherwise the kinds of scandals being reported in Serbia today will only continue.

At the national level, there is a full policy agenda. Alex Cobham, chief executive of Tax Justice Network, told Nacional that this deeply worrying story of financial secrecy and the mingling of public and private interests confirms the importance of key transparency policies, in order to protect the public from the risks of corruption and tax abuse.

“First, it is crucial that we have public registers of the ultimate beneficial ownership of companies and of trusts and foundations. Such a measure, now required in the EU through the revised Anti Money Laundering Directive, is the new international standard. Relatedly, governments should only allow companies to do business in their countries if they publish their true ownership and their accounts. At the same time, politicians and senior civil servants must be required to declare publicly their assets to guard against conflicts of interest.

“Secondly, this case makes clear that all public contracts must be in the public domain. There can be no good reason to prevent the public seeing how their own money is being spent by their elected representatives – and that logic extends equally to subsidies and tax incentives. The importance of incentives for the global switch to renewable energy makes this an industry of particular concern, likely to attract unscrupulous operators with no interest in sustainable development,” Cobham said.

“Finally, this story highlights the shocking failures of the World Bank’s IFC, and of the EBRD. These are institutions that claim to invest for the public good, but consistently refuse to ensure financial transparency or appropriate tax behaviour of their projects – and so once again find themselves associated with risks of corruption and tax abuse. Their policy choice to accept financial secrecy regardless of the public harm is shameful,” he added.

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…” →