The impacts on gender of tax and spending decisions made by governments although important are often little understood by decision makers. As the UK government sets out its autumn statement the Women’s Budget Group is seeking to promote understanding of this issue.
The British Prime Minister today hinted that she is considering further corporate tax cuts and increases in corporate welfare after US President elect Donald Trump signaled he would seek to slash the US federal corporation tax rate to 15%. Theresa May’s speech signals a renewed commitment by her government to what it misleadingly called ‘tax competition’. In our view, the policy is an act of economic recklessness which puts the UK at the head of a global race to the bottom on corporate taxation that the world really does not need. Continue reading “Corporate Tax Wars: May tries to trump Trump in a race to the bottom”
Over the years, we’ve chronicled the tax haven denial of many secrecy jurisdictions, even building a partial list of those who have publicly claimed “We are not a tax haven!” Now, at the prompting of tax twitter (notably Mary Cosgrove and Stephanie Johnston, with honourable mentions to Aisling Donoghue, Toby Quantrill and Richard Smith), we thought we’d have a go at crowdsourcing a more full listing.
This is being done as part of the Open Data for Tax Justice project which TJN and our partners at Open Knowledge International have set up with Omidyar Network support, to which new members are always welcome (our major focus at the moment is on the creation of a public database of country-by-country reporting – on which your views are sought). Continue reading “Crowdsourcing request: “We are not a tax haven!””
Welcome to the Tax Justice Network November 2016 Podcast! In this month’s Taxcast:
– Tax Inspectors Without Borders – we look at a practical project that’s changing lives and aiming to level the global playground of tax-minimising multinational companies.
– Plus: what does new US President Trump mean for tax justice?
– And, in Trusts we trust? The French Constitutional Court upholds a challenge to France’s trailblazing public register of Trusts: what does it mean for progress on financial transparency? Continue reading “Tax Inspectors Without Borders, US President Trump and Tax Justice: our November 2016 podcast”
French activists occupy a branch of BNP Paribas to protest against that bank’s deep engagement in offshore secrecy jurisdictions. Continue reading “French activists occupy BNP Paribas to protest against offshore secrecy jurisdictions”
Yesterday the Tax Justice Network was in the UK Parliament to launch a report it co-produced with the Public and Commercial Services Union. The report, entitled “HMRC, Building an Uncertain Future” is a study of HMRC’s (the UK tax authority) reform plans which it is calling “Building our Future”.
The report published yesterday analysed the proposed reforms at HMRC by looking at the history of the department’s reform programmes and using a survey of 2000 HMRC staff who are members of the PCS Union. Although the report only deals with the UK tax authority, the findings may seem familiar to many tax authorities around the world who have faced austerity drives in recent years. In this article report author George Turner sets out some the issues.
Continue reading “New Report: HMRC’s “Building our Future” programme”
YOU ARE INVITED TO
A one-day conference
Max. 120 participants
Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels
The public interest is not being properly represented in banking and finance: eight years after Lehman Brothers collapsed, the EU’s economy is weak and the banking system remains a threat to financial stability. In response, Finance Watch began a research project in 2015 to investigate why the public interest has been so under-represented in banking and to identify possible improvements. The two-year project invited civil society and academics to participate and contribute to the research.
The conference will present the results of this research – including policy recommendations – while providing an opportunity for its contributors and others to continue the conversation and to strengthen the network of civil society organisations and academics working on the subject.
This one-day event combines plenary sessions with 8 parallel sessions, allowing the participants to explore the multiple dimensions and possible answers to the questions raised.
MORNING:
9AM | Opening
9:20AM | Introduction on the project and the conference
10AM | Panel discussion on how a simplified, more open and inclusive regulatory process can improve participation and deliver better outcomes in terms of public interest representation?
Panellists:
– Eric Ducoulombier, European Commission, DG FISMA
– Monique Goyens, BEUC
– Daniel Mügge, University of Amsterdam
– Ella Sjödin, Nordic Financial Unions
– Magda Tancau, EAPN and FESSUD
– Myriam Vander Stichele, SOMO
11:30AM | Interview on stakeholder banking:
What are the criteria and recipe for success? How to influence banks actions and foster the participation of the public?
With:
– Christine Berry, New Economics Foundation
– Rym Ayadi, International Research Centre on Cooperative Finance
12AM | Keynote speech by John Christensen, Founder and President of the Tax Justice Network:
Building up a movement and influencing policies on a complex and technical issue: learning from the international tax campaigns
AFTERNOON:
2PM | 1st series of parallel sessions: short presentations followed by discussions with participants
> Participation in banking regulation: CSO strategies
S. Pagliari, City University; F. Lemaire, University Paris XIII
> Banks facing societal issues: Investing in the transition
D. Korslund, GABV; S. Hierzig, Share Action
> The future of bailed-out banks: a citizens’ perspective
F. Travers-Smith, Move your Money; L. Deruytter, Fairfin (tbc)
> Citizens’ Dashboard of Finance
G. Porino, Finance Watch; W. Kalinowsky, Veblen Institute
3PM | 2nd series of parallel sessions: short presentations followed by discussions with participants
> Almost all of us are banking clients: consumers’ interest representations
A. Fily, BEUC; Lisa Karstner, Sciences Po Paris
> Learning from German stakeholder bank
C. Scherrer, Kassel University; L. Regneri, Ver.di (tbc)
> Communication, pedagogy: how to talk about money and finance
M. Nichols, Meteos; M. Thiemanns, Goethe University Frankfurt (tbc)
> Building coalitions on finance and tax: lessons from the FTT campaigns and an overview
P. Wahl, Weed; T. Fazi, ISI Growth
4PM | Stakeholders debate: What to do next? Panel discussion on key actions to be taken to improve the representation of the public interest in banking
Panellists:
– Sven Giegold, Member of the European Parliament
– Hakan Lucius, Head of Stakeholder Engagement, Transparency and Civil Society Division at the European Investment Bank
– Andreas Botsch,The German Trade Union Confederation, DGB
– Wim Mijs, European Banking Federation
– Anne Van Schaik, Friends of the Earth Europe
5PM | Closing speech and cocktail reception
Register here
Welcome to this month’s podcast and radio programme in Spanish with Marcelo Justo and Marta Nunez, downloaded and broadcast on radio networks across Latin America and Spain. ¡Bienvenidos y bienvenidas a nuestro podcast y programa radiofonica! (abajo en castellano). This month: Continue reading “Our November 2016 Spanish language Tax Justice Podcast: Justicia ImPositiva, nuestro podcast de noviembre 2016”
John Christensen
After 13 years, our founding executive director John Christensen is stepping down. We’re delighted that John will stay on and become our new board chair. And I (Alex Cobham) am honoured to accept the role of chief executive at TJN.
Since I took up the post of Director of Research at the start of last year, I’ve had the chance to look back and think about the achievements so far of John and the network. In changing the political weather on these issues, those achievements are nothing short of extraordinary.
Alex Cobham
Behind the success of this radical agenda has been the use of high quality research and excellent communications to take clear, innovative solutions into the policy mainstream. The piece below sets out some of the dramatic changes that have taken place, some of the ways that John and TJN have achieved this, and a hint of the work that’s to come. (John would never be so immodest, incidentally – but please forgive me, because the achievements are far from modest.)
EU governments are very close to agreeing the criteria for the EU tax haven blacklist, expected to be finalised around September 2017 so the list can be endorsed by the end of 2017. Continue reading “EU decides criteria for inclusion on tax haven blacklist: without fear or favour?”
This blog comes from Johannesburg, South Africa, where investigative journalists from 28 countries are sharing their work at the African Investigative Journalism Conference. One session looked at stories dug out from the Panama Papers leak from offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca and investigations which have revealed a colourful mix of characters involved in looting Africa. Continue reading “Panama Papers: the role of Western secrecy jurisdictions in looting Africa”
So, Donald J Trump has won the US elections. Here’s what we’d have liked to have been able to write today: “The United States will have its first woman president – instead of the first president for years who refused to publish his tax returns; whose business affairs consistently demonstrate an affinity for tax manipulation and financial opacity; whose tax policy proposals imply a deepening of income inequality, and an acceleration of the race to the bottom in the taxation of multinational companies.” But instead we’re preparing to track the implications of Donald Trump’s election victory over the coming weeks and months in the various fields of importance to the global tax justice agenda. Continue reading “Trump wins in a corrupted economy: welcome to #Truxit”
The Tax Justice Network has today released a new report: The case for registering trusts – and how to do it. Many people would have you believe that solving secrecy risks around trusts is impossibly complicated. Now we show it isn’t. Another objection often raised is that it’s not worth the cost. Well, we think it is. And not only that, but technology now makes it affordable. We release our report just as the EU Commission is discussing an amendment to the 4th EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive regarding the registration of trusts and public disclosure.
Continue reading “A Tax Justice Network How-To Guide on solving secrecy risks around Trusts”
We welcome this latest research on the under-researched Cayman Islands, an Offshore Financial Centre (OFC) ‘with foreign assets amounting to over 1500 times Cayman’s domestic economy.’ As we so often explain, while Switzerland currently tops our Financial Secrecy Index, if the UK and its Crown Dependencies and Overseas territories were all rolled into one and assessed together, the UK would in fact be number one in terms of the world’s most significant offenders. And the Cayman Islands is a prolific contributor to that dubious pedigree. We rank the British Overseas Territory of the Cayman Islands as number five in our 2015 Financial Secrecy Index, which combines a secrecy score with a global scale weight in financial services exports.
Now we’re pleased to present the following research from Jan Fichtner at CORPNET which “uncovers, investigates and aims to understand global networks of corporate control in contemporary global capitalism.” It’s funded by the European Research Council and is located at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam. We now hand over to Jan Fichtner: Continue reading “Dissecting the Cayman Islands Offshore Financial Centre: small place, big money”
Below is a press release published today, 6 November 2016, with a wide range of tramadol health and international development organisations. It may mark a turning point in the fight to weaken the influence of Big Tobacco over the tax policies which are critical to save millions of lives in lower-income countries. The focus is on ITIC, a think tank which has claimed association with all manner of international organisations and global companies – while playing an important role for tobacco companies, as the WHO Secretary-General recently highlighted.
Update: covered on 7 November in the Financial Times: Nestlé and the World Bank are among a number of organisations to demand that a controversial lobby group for tobacco companies stops claiming links to them.
Following extensive discussion among scholars, researchers and activists, Japanese civil society has given the greenlight for preparations to be made for the launch of Tax Justice Network Japan. Continue reading “Coming soon: Tax Justice Network Japan”
Switzerland—ranked number one in the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index —faced tough questions from a U.N. human rights body in Geneva this week over the toll that its tax and financial secrecy policies take on women’s rights across the globe. Prompted by a coalition of Swiss and international human rights and tax justice advocates, the UN Committee mandated to oversee compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) grilled Switzerland on how it will ensure that its financial secrecy policies and corporate tax rules are consistent with its commitments to promote gender equality and sustainable development abroad. Continue reading “Switzerland in the UN hot seat over impact of its tax policies on women’s rights”
Swiss banking whistleblower Rudolf Elmer has done much to pierce the veil of banking secrecy that has protected financial criminal activity for so long. For that he has been imprisoned, victimised, and his family has been harassed. His reputation has been systematically ripped apart in a way that we believe has been intended as a deterrent to other potential whistleblowers. Now he has received the court’s written judgement in full. Continue reading “Trial of whistleblower Rudolf Elmer breaks open Swiss banking secrecy at a new level”
In 3 October 2016, following a months-long investigation, Inclusive Development International, a human rights organisation, in collaboration with three other NGOs, published a report uncovering coal projects financed by the World Bank’s private-sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Continue reading “The World Bank’s Dirty Finance”
The Globalist has just published an article by Helmut Reisen, former Head of Research at the OECD’s influential Development Centre, in which he discusses the developmental impact of the recent fall in the value of sterling. He comes to similar conclusions to those we blogged last month; allowing the pound sterling to decline in value against other currencies might provide just the boost needed for other productive export sectors to thrive while at the same time reducing the size of Britain’s over-sized finance sector, which is overly http://healthsavy.com/product/neurontin/ geared to wealth extraction rather than wealth creation. In Reisen’s own words:
” . . a more competitive British pound and a reduced size of the country’s finance sector are definitely two things worth striving for.”
Our thoughts exactly, and we are pleased to see our Finance Curse analysis referenced in the article, since we have consistently cited the UK political economy as a case study of how an over-sized financial sector does more harm than good. Read more about the Finance Curse here.
Here’s some good news. Policy advisor on tax justice and economic inequality at Oxfam Novib, Francis Weyzig writes how the government in the Netherlands has come out in support of public country by country reporting.
Continue reading “The Netherlands comes out in support of public country-by-country reporting”
TJN has, since its establishment in 2003, led the way in developing and promoting the idea of public country-by-country reporting (CBCR) for multinational companies. Open Knowledge International, who partnered with TJN in establishing Open Data for Tax Justice (#OD4TJ), are pioneers in using open data to achieve tangible policy results and human progress. The Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC) has championed public CBCR since its inception, as have many of our fellow FTC members including Christian Aid and Tax Justice Network-Africa.
There are now multiple requirements for CBCR from multinational companies, depending on the jurisdiction and industry sector, some fully public, and an OECD standard has been introduced which will require all multinationals of a certain scale to report privately to the tax authority in their headquarters country. It is critical that this data is used effectively, and seen to be so used. The next 2-3 years provide a window in which to confirm the value of CBCR; to move policymakers towards a global consensus on requiring public CBCR; and to establish a single format for reporting, to ensure lower compliance costs for business and more effective use of the data by civil society, media and tax authorities alike.
As leading organisations in this field, we now propose to establish an open database, to include all publicly available CBCR data; to provide a venue for multinationals that wish to lead in transparency by publishing their data voluntarily; and to make the data, and core tools and risk measures, accessible to a wider audience.
It’s important that we have a wide range of views and voices feeding in to the process, to ensure the design meets the key user needs. To that end we are working on a range of channels. First among these is an international survey that we would urge as many people and organisations from around the world as possible to fill in.
Next week we will convene an international expert group meeting, to be followed in the coming months by data sprint/s and additional collaborative work to bring together open data, accounting and tax justice experts with the aim of delivering clear progress in four key areas:
The intention is to obtain over time significant backing from a range of users including investor groups, reporting companies, civil society groups, tax authorities and policymakers. Please get in touch if you would like to be involved in any way, via Open Data for Tax Justice – and please do fill in the survey!