Mauritius: India cracks down on a major tax evasion route

Mauritius flagUpdate on this story available below on more recent developments

India cracks down on a major tax evasion route

A guest blog by Abdul Muheet Chowdhary

The issue

My award winning essay, written for a competition jointly held by the Tax Justice Network and Oxfam International, focused on how India is unable to meet its child rights obligations as it loses a huge amount of tax revenue because of some policy decisions taken by the government. These decisions enable tax abuse, and as is being increasingly understood, tax abuse is a human rights issue.

One of these decisions is the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) with Mauritius, a favourite tax haven for Indians. Under this, Mauritius based companies selling shares of Indian companies are effectively exempt from capital gains tax. This encouraged tax evaders to route investments into India through Mauritius based shell companies, leading to lots of tax revenue foregone. Official data states that over the 15 year period from 2000-2015, the highest amount (34%) of total FDI into India was from Mauritius, valued at US$ 93.6 billion. Continue reading “Mauritius: India cracks down on a major tax evasion route” →

Tax Justice Network May 2016 Podcast: the Anti-Corruption Summit – who’s the most corrupt?

In our May 2016 Taxcast: What is corruption? Well, that’s a political question, and the answer depends on who you ask. We discuss the anti-corruption summit in the City of London, the world’s capital of sleaze and ask if the sun ever set on the colonial era and the idea that corruption is a poor country issue. We explore extortive corruption versus collusive corruption and look at a new Poll which indicates for the first time the vast gulf between what the British people consider corrupt, and what has become a ‘normal’ way of doing business and politics. The overlap between the public and private spheres raises serious questions about democracy – and the nature of global fraud.

Produced and presented by @Naomi_Fowler for the Tax Justice Network.

Featuring: Nicholas Shaxson of Treasure Islands: The Men Who Stole the World, Professor Vincenzo Ruggiero of the Crime and Conflict Research Centre at Middlesex University, Will McMahon of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Professor David Whyte of Liverpool University and editor of the book ‘How Corrupt is Britain?‘, British Prime Minster David Cameron, President Buhari of Nigeria.

You can read more on the corruption Poll results in our Tax Justice Focus: The Corruption Issue here. You can also read about our Financial Secrecy Index here.

You can subscribe to our youtube channel Tax Justice TV and never miss a Taxcast, or email naomi [at] taxjustice.net to ask to be added to the subscriber list OR use iTunes, OR our RSS feed.

New report exposes flaws in global and EU anti-money laundering rules and explains how they can be fixed

global logo - square version NOV 2005Update: Part 2 is here.

As the political dust settles on the Panama papers and the anti-corruption summit, the focus is now moving to concrete solutions. In June 2016 the European Union is expected to review its anti-money laundering directive, including controversial rules on the beneficial ownership of companies. The Tax Justice Network has identified significant loopholes that jeopardise the effectiveness of these efforts to curtail money laundering.

Today, the Tax Justice Network publishes its new report “Drilling down to the real owners – Part 1” (the first of a series of upcoming documents) which analyses the legal language in the fourth European Anti-Money Laundering Directive (2015/849), a common European framework designed to establish an EU-wide approach to preventing the laundering of the proceeds of crime. The Directive is scheduled to come into force by mid-2017 across the European Union, but is now expected to be amended in June 2016 after the Panama Papers exposed the mayhem that can be caused by secret shell companies. Continue reading “New report exposes flaws in global and EU anti-money laundering rules and explains how they can be fixed” →

Anti-corruption summit: UK climbdown, but momentum grows

The UK government has failed to deliver a decisive blow against financial secrecy at its Anti-Corruption Summit. David Cameron failed to convince or compel leaders of British overseas territories and crown dependencies to end their hidden ownership vehicles, despite having called for such a move for more than a year.  But despite this climbdown, it’s clear that momentum is growing for the key transparency measures that will ultimately curtail global corruption.

About that climbdown though, let’s be crystal clear what happened: the UK has decided, explicitly, in an Anti-Corruption Summit in the wake of the extraordinary Panama Papers revelations, not to hold its Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies to a standard that Afghanistan, Kenya and Nigeria just met.

Let’s hear no more about corruption as a developing country problem.

Starting points

The last time the UK hosted a major summit, the 2013 G8, David Cameron’s government led from the front in helping to establish the Tax Justice Network’s three longstanding policy proposals as the global policy agenda: public registers of beneficial ownership; multilateral and automatic exchange of financial information; and public, country-by-country reporting by multinationals.

Three years later, none of them have been delivered in full, and there are concerns about the exclusion of developing countries from the progress that has been made; but the world had changed. Our director of research was sufficiently impressed to refer to it as the ‘end of the beginning‘ for progress against financial secrecy.

Since then, the UK has committed to a public register of the beneficial ownership of companies, which will be delivered next month. One hundred and one countries have signed up for the new multilateral standard for automatic exchange of information – leaving the US as the only significant financial centre outside the deal; although serious (and initially non-reciprocal) inclusion of developing countries is still needed. 

The OECD has created a pretty good first go at a standard for country-by-country reporting, which is now coming into force around the world. The data is currently private to tax authorities, but……..

After the progress that had been made, the agenda for the anti-corruption summit was clear: deliver as much as possible of what still remains. Here’s a link to our pre-summit assessment guide; and here’s how the event fared on these three main asks:

1. Make country-by-country reporting public

Some progress here: 12 countries ‘will support the development of a global commitment for large multinational enterprises to publicly disclose tax information on a country-by-country basis’. If we see the glass as half-full, this is good, positive momentum towards the end-goal that everyone can see we’ll reach – and probably relatively soon. If the glass is half-empty? Well, it’s easy to commit to do something when there is global agreement. Especially if you don’t really want to do it. And they should have specified that they would publish the OECD standard data. But overall, this is a small, positive step. 

2. Include the US and (non-reciprocally) developing countries in automatic information exchange

Nothing. Seriously. John Kerry spoke about the dangers of financial secrecy, without making a single commitment that would curtail the rise of Tax Haven USA as the biggest emerging global threat. And nothing of any significance on the need for developing country inclusion.

3. Establish public registers of beneficial ownership of companies, trusts and foundations, in the UK and its dependent territories at a minimum; and in as many of the 40-odd participating jurisdictions as possible.

The good news is that five countries (Afghanistan, France, Kenya, Netherlands and Nigeria) committed to public registers – in the French case the commitment included trusts and foundations. The increasing momentum here is rapidly establishing *public* ownership data as the international norm. We confidently expect to see many more commitments follow from others.

The bad news is that the UK’s Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies have comprehensively failed to meet the standard set by the UK. That was the absolute minimum, and entirely within the UK government’s hands to deliver.

In truth, the UK and its territories also need to meet the same transparency for trusts and foundations, since the former are so important to the old empire’s secrecy offering. But as we noted yesterday, David Cameron had already signalled the major climbdown in Parliament – responding to a question on his intentions for the summit with the retort that all the territories were going to have ‘central registers’: that is, central as opposed to public registers.

In the aftermath of the Panama Papers, nobody can seriously maintain that closed records held privately can be expected to reveal the necessary information to law enforcement or tax authorities when required. This is simply a recipe for bad data (deliberately and in error), only to be uncovered when it’s actually needed. The only verification process in which confidence in data quality can be broadly maintained is the scrutiny that comes from many eyes – from fully public, and indeed open data.

By continuing to resist that, in order presumably to protect the secrecy business of the UK territories, David Cameron has turned his back on the transparency legacy of 2013. This critical failure of the summit today seems to indicate instead that his government will ultimately support the UK secrecy model; for there could have been no possible better opportunity than this summit, in the wake of the Panama Papers, to take the decisive step necessary.

Postscript: In news unrelated to the Anti-Corruption Summit, the Electoral Commission announced today that they were taking Cameron’s Conservative party to the High Court for failure to disclose documents and information. 

Britain’s secrecy web: no corpses on the street, no problem

Organised crime expert Saviano: The British treat it as not their problem because there aren’t corpses on the street

Organised crime expert Saviano: The British treat it as not their problem because there aren’t corpses on the street

On the occasion of a global anti-corruption summit in London, Tom Burgis has written a superb long investigation into the City of London for the Financial Times — read it, if you can get a copy. As a teaser:

“For Andrea, the contrast between the American and British responses to BSI’s activities was striking. A 2002 UK statute obliges anyone who suspects they are witnessing transactions involving the proceeds of crime to notify the authorities, even if they have no hard evidence of wrongdoing. That is what Andrea had done in 2008 — and received assurances from the watchdogs that they were on the case. “Rest assured,” wrote one investigator, “we are taking your information seriously and will use this as the basis for further investigation.”

Continue reading “Britain’s secrecy web: no corpses on the street, no problem” →

What Would a Good Result for This Week’s London Anti-Corruption Summit Look Like?

This briefing presents different shades of what success would look like at this week’s international Anti-Corruption Summit in London — and what to look for when the announcements start to be made.

Tax havens or secrecy jurisdictions aren’t just about tax: the financial secrecy offered, together with light regulation, offer the perfect breeding ground for corrupt practices.

So dealing with tax havens must be at the heart of any action to combat global corruption.

British Prime Minister David Cameron is hosting the anti-corruption summit but he was caught on camera telling the Queen about the ‘fantastically corrupt’ countries attending. Yet the UK is at the heart of the global financial secrecy industry. The Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index identifies the UK as the world’s number 1 player, when taken together with Cayman, the British Virgin Islands, Jersey, and all its other offshore crown dependencies and overseas territories.

The UK government and its satellite havens have said that Britain can only ‘persuade’ these dependencies to change. But this is wrong: Britain can impose transparency and anti-corruption measures on them, simply by summoning the political will to do so. It has done it before and it is fully entitled to do it again — and as one lawyer was quoted as saying this week, it would take 2 sides of A4 and could be “done by the next morning.” The UK government must explicitly assert that it can require them to change their secrecy laws.

The absolute minimum for Cameron to be able claim genuine progress in his anti-corruption summit would be for Britain to oblige these satellite havens to join the UK in implementing a PUBLIC register of the beneficial owners of offshore companies and, importantly, to include offshore trusts and foundations in that public register. If trusts and foundations are not included, a public register will be of limited value and Cameron could end up creating an opportunity for the UK’s extremely lucrative trusts sector.

There must be beneficial ownership disclosure for Scottish and English limited partnerships, or at the very least bar uncooperative jurisdictions from being able to host companies that can be partners of those partnerships – a loophole that recently cost Moldova the equivalent of an eighth of its GDP, via one of these ‘confidentiality vehicles’ run out of a Scottish ex-council flat.

If some secretive structures aren’t included and these registers are done piecemeal, there will be a rush towards the omitted alternative vehicles to hide ownership – and the enabling professions in law, accountancy, banking and company formation will be very happy to help set them up.

What would an even better outcome look like?

Even better, the following would happen:

Some things that may be talked about but won’t work

 A new anti-corruption agency? Nope.

This will surely be irrelevant – and most likely run by the club of rich and powerful countries. If this summit were only to come up with this, it would be guilty of ‘transparency-washing’ where the world’s wealthiest countries bend ‘reforms’ to their own advantage. In the area of tax at least there is (and has always been) a serious, genuinely inclusive alternative to the rich country clubs of the OECD and the G20 which have tended to set the tax rules – and that is the United Nations Tax Committee.

Improving sports governance? Tackle tax havens.

Reforming FIFA and other sports bodies is clearly an important issue. These bodies have been a disgrace to all participants in the game they manage. But any announcements on sports governance that don’t involve the transparency measures mentioned above will be of limited benefit. Potential proposals here will look all the more irrelevant if the major risk bodies such as FIFA and the IOC are not among the participants.

Blacklists? Handle with extreme caution.

Blacklists and sanctions can work – but it all depends on how you set them up, and who is on the list.

Many blacklists and sanctions are worthless because the biggest culprits in global financial secrecy – like the UK and USA – are powerful enough to ensure they’re excluded.

Any serious global blacklist would have to include tax haven USA for example, and of course the UK (with its satellite havens included). Are world leaders really prepared to implement sanctions against the world’s biggest players in the game?

If blacklists are based on objectively verifiable criteria, and not on the highly politicised selection processes we’ve seen in the past, then we’re into a different game.

And in fact, the world already has the tools from the Tax Justice Network for creating a serious, independent, de-politicised blacklist and sanctions system: the Financial Secrecy Index. The key question to ask might be: will governments use the objectively verifiable secrecy criteria that underpins it?

END

1 Otherwise, a company owned by a family of four people – or four friends – would easily be allowed to circumvent beneficial owner identification (since each would have only 25%, which is below the “more than 25% threshold”)

Support grows for our withholding tax policy against Tax Haven USA

Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown

From the former UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, writing in The UK’s Guardian newspaper:

“In addition to a comprehensive European blacklist of tax havens as the first step to a global blacklist, we should agree that British overseas territories and crown dependencies that fail to comply cannot be excluded from the blacklist; and the UK should now require them to have public registers of beneficial owners.

Britain cannot achieve this on its own. And with America currently resisting reciprocal tax arrangements, collective action by all 28 countries of the European Union to blacklist avoiders, impose sanctions and even levy withholding taxes – on our own overseas territories, if necessary – is currently the one game in town.”

Continue reading “Support grows for our withholding tax policy against Tax Haven USA” →

What if tax reform was a fundamental human right?

xIn January we blogged our 2016 Tax Justice and Human Rights essay competition, in partnership with Oxfam. It was a competition aimed at legal students and professionals, seeking ideas on how human rights law can be used in the fight against tax dodging.

The winning student submission was from Megan Jones, a PhD Candidate at the Queensland University of Technology. She has written a joint article in The Conversation, with Kerrie Sadiq, a TJN Senior Adviser who is also Jones’ supervisor. Its title is What if tax reform was a fundamental human right?

The introduction states: Continue reading “What if tax reform was a fundamental human right?” →

More than $12 trillion stuffed offshore, from developing countries alone

James S. Henry

James S. Henry

From The Guardian:

“More than $12tn has been siphoned out of Russia, China and other emerging economies into the secretive world of offshore finance, new research has revealed, as David Cameron prepares to host world leaders for an anti-corruption summit.
. . .
The analysis, carried out by Columbia University professor James S Henry for the Tax Justice Network, shows that by the end of 2014, $1.3tn of assets from Russia were sitting offshore.“

David Cay Johnston, writing in The Daily Beast in the U.S., adds: Continue reading “More than $12 trillion stuffed offshore, from developing countries alone” →

Panama Papers: source issues a tax justice document

Countries with politicians, public officials or close associates implicated in the leak. Source: Wikipedia

Countries with politicians, public officials or close associates implicated in the leak. Source: Wikipedia

The source for the “Panama Papers” data leaks, originally via Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, has issued a statement expressing mixed feelings about the world’s reactions to the leaks. It is a devastating statement of tax justice and the main purpose of this blog is really to ensure that our readers are aware of its existence. We’ve put a few comments below, but they are less significant than the statement: just go and read it.

The title of the statement is “The Revolution Will Be Digitized” – suggesting a non-British source (or they would have written “Digitised”) who is a technology fan, which is consistent with stories that it is a hacker — and the source states:

“I do not work for any government or intelligence agency, directly or as a contractor, and I never have. My viewpoint is entirely my own.”

This is certainly plausible.  Continue reading “Panama Papers: source issues a tax justice document” →

The Economist – How to crack a shell

shell

We love this cartoon from this week’s edition of The Economist, which comes from a lengthy article about the forthcoming anti-corruption summit in London.  Continue reading “The Economist – How to crack a shell” →

Tax Justice Focus – The Corruption Issue

HSBC explains its relationship with the UK legal system (Image: Nicolas Christensen)

HSBC explains its relationship with the UK legal system (Image: Nicolas Christensen)

As Britain prepares to host a global Corruption Summit in London next week, the Panama Papers have raised awkward questions about the country’s role as an enabler of transnational organised crime.  Meanwhile evidence is emerging that ordinary people in Britain no longer accept the elites’ version of what constitutes corruption. Continue reading “Tax Justice Focus – The Corruption Issue” →

Tax haven Jersey – the North Korea connection

A North Korea Jersey (this is the away strip.)

A North Korea jersey (the away strip.) A propos of nothing but a pun.

Recently, in The Guardian:

“Jersey, for example, offers a stable political and fiscal environment along with strong, internationally recognised regulation and financial expertise. Jersey has no secrecy laws but respects client confidentiality. Furthermore, Jersey is a co-operative jurisdiction which has signed 20 tax information exchange agreements and has been placed on the OECD’s list of jurisdictions – along with the US, UK, France and Germany – “that have substantially implemented internationally agreed tax standards”.

This is just one version of the ‘we are not a tax haven‘ story that all financial centres push out. The greater the appearance of probity, the more ‘investors’ (and hot money) will find it a reassuring place to come to, is the general idea. So, as we’ve noted before, ‘spin’ is terribly important.  Continue reading “Tax haven Jersey – the North Korea connection” →

On Luxembourg’s contribution to financial instability

200px-Landsbanki.svgSince the global financial crisis erupted we’ve been running a web section called tax havens & financial crisis – which looks at the risks that tax havens pose to financial stability.

Perhaps the strongest thread running through this page is the fact that tax havens provide escape routes from rules – such as financial regulations – which enable players to take the cream while the going is good, and then heap the costs and risks onto the rest of society when things fall apart.

Here at the TJN conference in London we’ve just heard a fascinating presentation called Iceland: the Offshorisation of an Economy. Continue reading “On Luxembourg’s contribution to financial instability” →

Event: Illicit financial flows after ‘Panamania’: Seizing the moment

global logo - square version NOV 2005

The first evening of our annual research workshop at City University will feature a special public event, jointly organised with the Royal African Society, on the policy implications of the Panama Papers, and the future of financial secrecy.

Thursday, 28 April 2016 – 6:00pm to 8:00pm

Date & Time: Thursday 28th April, 18:00-20:00
Venue: Lecture Theatre ELG03, Drysdale Building, City University, London, EC1V 0HB
Speakers: Dr Dereje Alemayehu (Chair, Global Alliance for Tax Justice), Batanayi Katongera (Executive Editor, Transfer Pricing Inside Africa) Daniel Balint-Kurti (Investigative Journalist, Global Witness) & Rachel Owens (Senior Campaigner, Global Witness)
Chair: Nicholas Shaxson (Author, Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World)

The event is free to attend, but registration is required – follow link for full details and to register.

In the dock: Antoine Deltour, Edouard Perrin – or Luxembourg?

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]From Richard Brooks, a flippant but telling tweet:

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and a picture of one of three people formally accused for their role in this whistleblower scandal:

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Who is in the dock? The whistleblowers? Or the tax haven of Luxembourg and PWC, the multinational that has been behind this trial?

Continue reading “In the dock: Antoine Deltour, Edouard Perrin – or Luxembourg?” →

TJN Annual Discussion Workshop on Corruption and the Role of Tax Havens – programme

yDiscussion Workshop

Corruption and the Role of Tax Havens

#tjn16

City University, London, 28th – 29th April 2016

Oliver Thompson Lecture Theatre, Northampton Square EC1V 0HB

 FINAL PROGRAMME

Continue reading “TJN Annual Discussion Workshop on Corruption and the Role of Tax Havens – programme” →

Guest blog: Panama, the secret garden of the Colombian oligarchy

Flag-Pins-Panama-Colombia

Friendship – but only for some

Update: Colombia and Panama reach agreement on information-sharing.

Panama, the secret garden of the Colombian oligarchy

This guest blog is written by a political news writer in Colombia, who wishes to remain anonymous. 

As everywhere else in the world, the disclosure of the Mossack Fonseca documents has been on the front page of all major Colombian papers. However, the close historical links between Colombia and neighbouring Panama, as well as the deeply unequal social structure of the country, make the case of Colombia particularly interesting. Given the unusually close historical, economic and political links between the two countries, it is remarkable that almost nothing of substance has emerged from the Panama papers, from a Colombian perspective. Continue reading “Guest blog: Panama, the secret garden of the Colombian oligarchy” →

BEPS Monitoring Group on curbing tax treaty abuses

BEPSFrom the BEPS Monitoring Group, a TJN-backed civil society organisation tasked with monitoring the OECD’s so-called “Base Erosion and Profit Shifting” (BEPS) proposals to crack down on international corporate tax avoidance.  The (wonkish but important) submission here concerns so-called “non-CIV” funds that are not collective investment vehicles. (Collective investment vehicles are entities that allow investors to pool their money and invest the pooled funds, rather than buying securities directly. CIVs include mutual funds, exchange traded funds and a few others; non-CIVs typically include private equity funds, hedge funds, trusts or other investment vehicles.) The submission here responds to “BEPS Action 6” which seeks to curb the abuse of tax treaties. Continue reading “BEPS Monitoring Group on curbing tax treaty abuses” →

Tax Justice Network April 2016 Podcast: a #PanamaPapers special

In the April 2016 Taxcast: in this month’s extended podcast we discuss the biggest offshore leak in history, the #PanamaPapers: could it provide an opportunity for nations to expand their secrecy market share? Once again, all eyes are on Trusts… Also, as the #LuxLeaks whistleblower Antoine Deltour‘s trial begins in Luxembourg, we ask why protections for whistleblowers are being eroded and what it says about the state of our democracy. Presented and produced for the Tax Justice Network by Naomi Fowler.

‘it does appear that the British Prime Minister is pushing to protect and enlarge the British Trust industry, at the expense of traditional banking secrecy arrangements and for that reason we must ensure that there is absolutely no way that Trusts can be used as a way of wriggling out of international information exchange processes.’

John Christensen, Tax Justice Network

‘such very useful leaks [like Panama Papers and LuxLeaks] and the disclosure of so much interesting data will be much more difficult in the future.’

Antonio Gambini, CNCD 11.11.11

‘in many ways Luxembourg is a diverse, affluent, peaceful, happy society but then of course there is always those nagging questions where is the wealth really coming from and is it a sustainable business model and the wealth that we get, is it a zero sum or negative sum gain for people around the world?’

Luc Dockendorf, Collectif Tax Justice Lëtzebuerg

Featuring: John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network, Member of the European Parliament Fabio De Masi, Antonio Gambini of CNCD 11.11.11, co-founder of Luxembourg’s home grown tax justice collective Collectif Tax Justice Lëtzebuerg Luc Dockendorf and a brief appearance by EU Commission President and former PM of Luxembourg Jean-Claude Juncker.

You can subscribe to our youtube channel Tax Justice TV and never miss a Taxcast, or email naomi [at] taxjustice.net to ask to be added to the subscriber list OR use iTunes, OR our RSS feed.

Guest blog: have universities gone offshore with finance theory and teaching?

Dr. Atul Shah

Dr. Atul Shah

HAVE UNIVERSITIES GONE OFFSHORE WITH THEIR FINANCE THEORIES AND TEACHING?

Dr. Atul K. Shah, Suffolk Business School, University Campus Suffolk Twitter @atulkshah

Offshore is not just about secrecy or taxation. It forces us to reflect on the nature of knowledge, truth and expertise. Accounting and Finance are massive disciplines taught in business schools all over the world, with thousands of academics conducting research, writing textbooks and teaching. Whole professions are shaped and nurtured by this knowledge base and expertise. At this time of huge public interest, it would be interesting to ask whether offshore tax havens are covered in mainstream economics, finance and accounting teaching and research. Continue reading “Guest blog: have universities gone offshore with finance theory and teaching?” →

A graphical assault on supply-side tax cuts and tax ‘competitiveness’

War Games, Tax Wars

War Games, Tax Wars

From Fools’ Gold:

Fools’ Gold [and TJN] author Nicholas Shaxson has just had a piece in the Washington Post entitled Five Myths about Tax Havens in which Myth 5 goes like this:

“5. Cutting corporate taxes helps nations compete with tax havens.

Reducing corporate taxes to attract wealth back from tax havens sounds plausible — “Republicans call [tax inversions] the inevitable consequence of a flawed tax system,” Bloomberg View recently observed, “and say the only solution is a full revamp of the tax code, including lowering the corporate rate and limiting taxes on foreign profits.” But it doesn’t work that way. Tax cuts at home don’t persuade corporate bosses to ease up on tax avoidance, and there are always more lucrative shelters abroad.
Continue reading “A graphical assault on supply-side tax cuts and tax ‘competitiveness’” →