Why is the CEO of IKEA Switzerland head of a UN panel on gender?

Simona Scarpaleggia, CEO of IKEA Switzerland

Simona Scarpaleggia, CEO of IKEA Switzerland

On March the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment held their inaugural meeting. The panel:

“intends to put women’s economic empowerment at the top of the international agenda, including by defining actions to speed up progress under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” 

Gender responses and gender impact are clearly seen as key ways to anchor the success of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. And we’re pleased that this is happening. But there is a jarring note. Continue reading “Why is the CEO of IKEA Switzerland head of a UN panel on gender?” →

Scottish Government announces historic law to end secrecy of land ownership

This topic has been building slowly in some countries, whose economies are blighted by the fact that large tracts of real estate are owned by anonymous entities and arrangements, typically linked to tax havens. We’d highlight Private Eye’s searchable database of offshore-owned properties in the UK — and in this particular case the indefatigable Scottish land and transparency campaigner Andy Wightman. His latest blog begins like this: Continue reading “Scottish Government announces historic law to end secrecy of land ownership” →

Indonesia’s corrupt tax amnesty – how many will follow?

imageFrom Reuters:

“Business may be about to look up for the [wealth management] industry helped by President Joko Widodo’s tax amnesty plan that could encourage rich Indonesians to declare assets previously concealed from the authorities, either at home or abroad.”

So Indonesia is contemplating a tax amnesty. It’s not in place yet, but some sort of announcement is expected next month.

We generally take a very dim view of tax amnesties – they are short term palliatives that come at the expense of much larger long-term revenues, and they severely damage democracy, creating a sense that there is one rule for the rich and powerful, and another rule for everyone else.

More importantly, perhaps, we fear that this is a canary in the coalmine as the world’s élites start to rebel against an approaching era of greater transparency. Continue reading “Indonesia’s corrupt tax amnesty – how many will follow?” →

Following the Money: French Banks’ Activities in Tax Havens

ParadisUpdate: the English version is coming soon; the French version is here. 

The following press release is published by Oxfam France; CCFD-Terre Solidaire; and Secours Catholique-Caritas. The accompanying study uses the first fully available public Country-by-Country reporting data from French banks following the implementation of CRD IV, the piece of EU legislation requiring banks to disclose this information. It shows that banks in France are relying heavily on tax havens to increase their profits — and there is some interesting data in there.

The European Commission is about to publish its impact assessment and proposal for public Country by Country Reporting (CbCR) at EU level.  Concerns about so-called “competitiveness” could water down the EC proposal, but this piece of work shows that public CbCR is a useful tool which has not harmed banks in France or the EU.

The main recommendation at the EU level is to call for the extension of public CbCR to all sectors. Continue reading “Following the Money: French Banks’ Activities in Tax Havens” →

KPMG: are they really masters of the universe?

A guest blog by Atul Shah of Suffolk Business School. Also published at Tax Research.

Are KPMG really masters of the universe?

The growing size and influence of Big 4 global accounting firms, and their supermarket of business consulting and advisory services, is generating alarm among scholars concerned about ethics, independence, and truth. Our research at Suffolk Business School has raised a number of questions about their ethics, conflicts of interest and culture. There is confusion as to whether they are a regulator of business, or help business escape regulatory control through skilled professional services – the primary driver seems to be maximising profit. We also found high level corporate and political networks and influence on government and regulatory processes. Continue reading “KPMG: are they really masters of the universe?” →

The Multinational Enterprises (Financial Transparency) Bill

Caroline Flint

Caroline Flint

From the UK parliament, a motion that we noted in our previous blog on Oxfam’s new UK tax havens report, and which we strongly support:

Multinational Enterprises (Financial Transparency): Ten Minute Rule Motion

Caroline Flint

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require certain multinational enterprises to include, within their annual financial reporting, specified information prepared in accordance with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s requirements for Country-by-Country reporting; and for connected purposes.

A letter from Caroline Flint to the UK Chancellor (Finance Minister) is available here. Her press release is below. Continue reading “The Multinational Enterprises (Financial Transparency) Bill” →

Oxfam report: Ending the Era of Tax Havens

Oxfam wealthBack in June 2000, three years before TJN’s birth and at a time when nobody was talking about the issues, the charity Oxfam published a seminal document entitled Tax Havens: Releasing the hidden billions for poverty eradication.  It was an important part of global tax justice history. We’re delighted that Oxfam has again been extremely active in the area, and now has produced an important, in-depth new report entitled Ending the Era of Tax Havens: Why the UK Government Must Lead the Way, written with the help of TJN’s research Director Alex Cobham.

It begins: Continue reading “Oxfam report: Ending the Era of Tax Havens” →

Our corruption and tax havens workshop: new programme

We’ve updated the programme for our Corruption and Tax Havens workshop at City University, London, on April 28th and 29th. Great sessions in prospect including papers on the corruption driven by the UK’s financial secrecy network, on gender and human rights impacts, and on the role of professionals including the big four accounting firms.

You can find the programme here, and embedded below. Oh, and don’t forget to register if you’re going to join us.

[embeddoc url=”https://www.taxjustice.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/City-2016-core-programme-March-28-29-APR-2016.pdf”]

Top rate income tax cuts: 89 percent go to men, 11 percent to women

Women tax cuts

Sharing out the proposed tax cut from 45 to 40 percent

From The UK’s Mirror newspaper:

“If George Osborne [the UK Finance Minister] slashes the rate further in the Budget – from 45p to 40p for those on £150,000 or more – will put even more money in men’s pockets.

Analysis by the Tax Justice Network found there are 339,000 people (284,000 men and 55,000 women) earning above that level.

Cutting the rate to 40p would be worth £3.3billion to high-earning men (89%) but just £428million to wealthy women (11%)”

(Hat tip to Jolyon Maugham for that 339,000 figure, of which 83.8% are men.) We recently explained how a proposed cut to the UK top rate of income tax from 45 percent to 50 percent (for incomes over £150,000) would see 83.8 percent of the tax cut going directly to men, and 16.2 percent to women.

That’s counting the number of taxpayers affected. But now let’s ask how much of the £ value of this tax cut would go to women.

Continue reading “Top rate income tax cuts: 89 percent go to men, 11 percent to women” →

Why tax ‘competitiveness’ is like ice cream

Only spoilsports could be against this

Only spoilsports are against it

From the Fools’ Gold blog:

One of the core arguments of our Fool’s Gold project is that if you shower wealthy people and large corporations with goodies, two things happen.

First, you may help them and you may be able to demonstrate some benefits, somewhere in the economy: such as improved performance for the stock options held by the executives at the multinationals concerned.

Second, though, there is the annoying snag that those benefits entail costs elsewhere in your economy.

Someone has to pay for these goodies! Who will it be?

Continue reading “Why tax ‘competitiveness’ is like ice cream” →

“Squeaky clean” Cayman caught in the act – again

The Buck stops at Buck House

Does the Buck stop at Buckingham Palace?

From the U.S. Department of Justice:

“Cayman National Securities Ltd. (CNS) and Cayman National Trust Co. Ltd. (CNT), two Cayman Island affiliates of Cayman National Corporation . . . pleaded guilty to a criminal Information charging them with conspiring with many of their U.S. taxpayer-clients to hide more than $130 million in offshore accounts from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and to evade U.S. taxes on the income earned in those accounts.”

Continue reading ““Squeaky clean” Cayman caught in the act – again” →

Tax haven Panama: giving the world the “middle finger”

Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado

Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado

Stephen Sackur and the BBC’s Hard Talk programme have been talking to Panama’s Vice President Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado. (It’s only available to UK-based viewers, unfortunately.)

She begins with a bout of self-congratulation about Panama, and Sackur responds with a wide number of allegations of corruption. He forces her to admit that Panama has been recalcitrant in this area.

The most pertinent section for our purposes is between around 8:30 and 13:30, where Sackur says: Continue reading “Tax haven Panama: giving the world the “middle finger”” →

International Women’s Day: tax justice is a feminist issue, every day.

Women’s Budget Group (UK): showing how gender issues can be addressed

International Women’s Day: Tax Justice is a feminist issue, every day.

By Liz Nelson

On International Women’s Day, let’s remember that tax justice is a feminist issue – every day. We’d like to use today to signal some significant milestones and forthcoming opportunities for understanding and addressing the gendered impacts of tax abuse. There is now some significant move in this area.

In 2014 a new network emerged, Women for Tax Justice. In  our Tax Justice Focus edition (April, 2015) on gender  Mae Buenaventura quantified the gender impact of tax dodging by multinationals in Asia. She also reminded us of a ‘weather changing’ report  in 2014 by Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, which highlighted the importance of adopting progressive tax policies to address poverty,  inequality, discrimination.  Continue reading “International Women’s Day: tax justice is a feminist issue, every day.” →

How do top rate income tax cuts affect women?

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]On International Women’s Day, this is the first of two blogs on the subject of tax justice and gender.

The short answer to the question in our headline is that cuts to the top rate of income tax hit women particularly hard, not just because their disproportionate role in childcare and other family-related areas are hit by ensuing government spending cuts, but also because the top earners who are enjoying the tax-cut bonanza are predominantly men.

For more background on this, see our blog Why Gender Equality Requires More Tax Revenue by Diane Elson, chair of the UK Women’s Budget Group, and our TJN page dedicated to tax justice and gender issues.

Continue reading “How do top rate income tax cuts affect women?” →

Taxing corporations: the Politics and Ideology of the Arm’s Length Principle

From their paper presentation "The Politics of Intra-Firm Trade": a picture of the Arm's Length Principle in action

The Arm’s Length Principle, in action. From “The Politics of Intra-Firm Trade” (later copied by Michaelangelo.)

Last year we posted a presentation by Matti Ylönen looking at the politics of the international tax system. Now he has written us a guest blog, based on his paper co-authored with Teivo Teivainen, which was a co-winner of the Amartya Sen Prize in October 2015.

Taxing corporations: the Politics and Ideology of the Arm’s Length Principle

A guest blog by Matti Ylönen

Few articles have been written about intra-firm trade that do not at least mention the “Arm’s Length Principle”, or ALP. A significant proportion of cross-border world trade takes place inside (as opposed to between) multinational corporations; and ever since the 1930s the ALP has been the key principle for regulating this trade. Continue reading “Taxing corporations: the Politics and Ideology of the Arm’s Length Principle” →

Switzerland’s financial secrecy brought under the human rights spotlight 

Swiss flagSwitzerland – arguably the world’s most important tax haven – may soon face scrutiny from the United Nations human rights system over its role in facilitating cross-border tax abuse. A coalition of civil society bodies has filed a submission to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW,) the UN body mandated to oversee compliance with women’s human rights – focusing specifically on the extra-territorial impacts of Switzerland’s opaque financial legislation on women’s rights and gender equality, particularly in developing countries. 
Continue reading “Switzerland’s financial secrecy brought under the human rights spotlight “ →

Google, Facebook and a gradual realignment to the post-BEPS landscape

Prof. Sol Picciotto

Prof. Sol Picciotto

Last week we wrote an article entitled Facebook ‘to pay more UK tax’. Let’s not get carried away, analysing an announcement by Facebook that it will restructure its operations so as to pay more tax in the UK. This follows earlier news (on which we also commented) that Google had reached a deal with the UK authorities to pay more tax. Now a guest blog by Prof Sol Picciotto sheds further light on these deals, and sets them in a broader context.

Google, Facebook and a gradual realignment towards the post-BEPS landscape

A guest blog by Sol Picciotto Continue reading “Google, Facebook and a gradual realignment to the post-BEPS landscape” →

US Fortune 500 cos hold $2.4trn offshore, dodging up to $695bn in tax

CTJFrom Citizens for Tax Justice, a major new report:

“A diverse array of companies are using offshore tax havens. . . All told, American Fortune 500 corporations are avoiding up to $695 billion in U.S. federal income taxes by holding $2.4 trillion of “permanently reinvested” profits offshore. In their latest annual financial reports, 27 of these corporations reveal that they have paid an income tax rate of 10 percent or less in countries where these profits are officially held, indicating that most of these monies are likely in offshore tax havens.”

And that number is rising, fast.

Continue reading “US Fortune 500 cos hold $2.4trn offshore, dodging up to $695bn in tax” →

UN asks IMF, World Bank, to study illicit financial flows

Eurodad's report highlighting the extent of official research into IFF

Eurodad’s 2009 report highlighting the extent of official research into IFF

Highlighting a powerful new(ish) study: the final report on illicit financial flows and human rights of the UN Independent Expert, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky. It’s well worth reading the whole thing, but here are some of the top lines and just a few of the many important recommendations:

Continue reading “UN asks IMF, World Bank, to study illicit financial flows” →

Facebook ‘to pay more UK tax’. Let’s not get carried away

FBUpdate: see Prem Sikka’s article “Facebook looks set to pay more UK tax but it might not be as much as you think.”

The UK seems to be a bit of a canary in the mine on international corporation tax at the moment. This is because the British public is very, very exercised about these issues. The latest twist is a story, which the Guardian has written up under the headline “Facebook to pay millions more in UK tax.” The summary goes:

“Starting in April, the world’s largest social network will change its policy so that revenue generated from its largest advertisers displaying content on Facebook will be routed through the UK rather than Ireland. The change is expected to generate higher taxable profits in Britain and forms part of the US company’s plan to mitigate criticism of tax avoidance.”

Here’s a TJN statement about this, for starters. Alex Cobham, TJN’s Research Director, said: Continue reading “Facebook ‘to pay more UK tax’. Let’s not get carried away” →

2016 Honesty Oscars: Stop the Bleeding song wins

The results of the 2016 Honesty Oscars are announced, and the winner is this song from the Stop the Bleeding campaign. Congratulations.

Will the US Implement Country by Country Reporting?

us flagThe BEPS Monitoring Group, an expert body (backed by TJN and others) that works on international corporate tax issues, has published its comments on draft US Treasury Regulations on Country by Country Reporting (CbCR, for an explanation for newcomers, see here). Given the large number of multinational enterprises (MNEs) headquartered in the US, it is crucial for the US to adopt the scheme, if it is to work at all. Continue reading “Will the US Implement Country by Country Reporting?” →