The Tax Justice Coalition Pakistan has just published the following video animation detailing how poor and middle income households in that country carry 75 per cent of the tax contribution, and outlining measures required to restore a degree of progressiveness to what is an increaingly unjust tax regime. Continue reading “A new whiteboard animation from the Tax Justice Coalition Pakistan”
Caught on camera
Earlier this week we blogged a groundbreaking exposé of how US law firms advise on shifting dirty money into the USA. Now we hear that bipartisan legislation is being proposed to help stamp out corruption, money laundering and tax evasion by curbing use of anonymously-owned companies in America. Continue reading “Tax Haven USA: Congress moves to end corporate secrecy”
We’ve just received a copy of the final Communiqué of the 6th Citizen’s Continental Conference which took place in late January in Addis Ababa. This year the conference, which precedes the African Union Summit, had human rights as its core focus, with a particular focus on the rights of women. Continue reading “Civil society calls on African Union to prioritise financing human rights for women”
One year ago, Tax Justice Network published a blog detailing the ways in which the USA is steadily turning itself into a vortex-shaped hole in the global financial system. Others have picked up on the theme, including The Economist which rightly labelled the USA as “the mega-haven”. Now, according to London’s Evening Standard newspaper, tax advisers at exclusive Rothschild Trust are (nearly, but not quite) joining the bandwagon. Continue reading “Tax Haven USA – part two: Rothschilds (nearly) confirms Tax Justice Network position”
Ground-Breaking exposé by Global Witness shows how the corrupt can exploit anonymously-owned companies Continue reading “Tax Haven USA – part one: 12 New York law firms advise on how to move dirty money to the USA”
Responding to the UK government’s poor handling of tax negotiations with Google, Nigel Lawson, climate change denier and architect of one of the biggest boom-bust recessions of modern history, has told the Daily Telegraph that the corporate income tax has “had its day”. Instead he proposes a “much” lower rate with a tax on corporate sales. Continue reading “Nigel Lawson, not the corporate income tax, has had his day”
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For a longer read on this kind of thing, try this. And from the same http://artsandhealth.ie/diclofenac/ source as the cartoon, in the context of current news:[/vc_column_text][vc_raw_js]
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The European Commission has announced:
“The European Commission has today opened up a new chapter in its campaign for fair, efficient and growth-friendly taxation in the EU with new proposals to tackle corporate tax avoidance. The Anti Tax Avoidance Package calls on Member States to take a stronger and more coordinated stance against companies that seek to avoid paying their fair share of tax and to implement the international standards against base erosion and profit shifting.”
TJN has found the proposals disappointing, to say the least. A TJN statement follows. Continue reading “Europe’s Anti Tax Avoidance Package: adding fuel to the fire?”
Here is the text of a letter of complaint that TJN will be handing in to the European Commission at its office in London this afternoon.
On 23rd January 2016 the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, tweeted from Davos that the UK Government had struck a deal with Google over its past tax liabilities. The deal was disclosed at the specific request of Google.
TJN is concerned that deals have been secretly struck with by HM Revenue & Customs with other companies which have not been disclosed to the public.
We are therefore calling on the European Commission to investigate the Google deal, and also to investigate other so-called sweetheart deals with multinational companies that have not been publicly disclosed.
Read our letter below
Continue reading “TJN calls on EC to investigate all of the UK’s secret tax deals”
This morning Alex Cobham, TJN’s Director of Research, called for public country-by-country reporting, in an interview with the BBC’s flagship Today programme (19:20ish).
“Country-by-country reporting: that was actually a Tax Justice Network proposal, going back to our establishment in 2003; but the key to it is for that information to be public: if tax authorities have it, that helps them. But we need to be able to hold tax authorities to account: to know, for example, if HMRC [the UK tax authority] is treating Google fairly.”
What do you know? A few hours later, also on the BBC:
We’ve got lots more to say on this, of course, but for now we’ll just ask this: can the timing be a coincidence?
More on country by country reporting here.
Endnote: we’ve blogged Google twice in the last couple of days: see Prof. Sol Picciotto’s more wonkish blog, and our more sweeping earlier one, looking at the economic illiteracy of the Mayor of London.)
And as an update, we’re launching an official complaint at the EU about all this.
Alex Cobham, TJN’s esteemed Director of Research
Guest blog from TJN senior adviser Professor Sol Picciotto
The announcement of the deal struck by Google with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has aroused much speculation. The term ‘permanent establishment’ has even been mentioned in some august media outlets, such as the Financial Times. These are waters which have been deliberately muddied, so let’s see if we can clarify what is going on. Continue reading “Taxing Google (and Facebook, Twitter, Uber and the rest)”
Bloomberg is running a story entitled The World’s Favorite New Tax Haven Is the United States, which closely follows the line that TJN has been taking, particularly since our big Loophole USA blog a year ago, and our subsequent USA Report for the Financial Secrecy Index last October.
Expanding on a quote we used in our USA report and in our more recent call for Europe to apply withholding http://artsandhealth.ie/accutane/ taxes to counter the new global threat emanating from the United States, Bloomberg cites:
“How ironic—no, how perverse—that the USA, which has been so sanctimonious in its condemnation of Swiss banks, has become the banking secrecy jurisdiction du jour,” wrote Peter A. Cotorceanu, a lawyer at Anaford AG, a Zurich law firm, in a recent legal journal. “That ‘giant sucking sound’ you hear? It is the sound of money rushing to the USA.”
Continue reading “Tax haven USA: new Bloomberg story adds urgency to reform needs”
Tax Justice Network and Oxfam are joining together to launch a tax justice and human rights essay competition for legal students and professionals. With tax justice rising up the human rights agenda, we want to hear your ideas on how human rights law can be used in the fight against tax dodging. Continue reading “2016 Tax Justice and Human Rights Essay Competition”
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Courtesy of Uncounted. (Answer: $100 billion)
No, not the Lord Mayor of London, but the Mayor of London, a certain Boris Johnson, who’s frequently tipped to be Britain’s next Prime Minister. Given that Britain is arguably the most important player in the global offshore system, this man’s opinions deserve close scrutiny.
The topic at hand is Google’s tax affairs in the UK, and the UK government’s triumphant widely derided announcement that Google would be paying an extra £130 million in back taxes over the last 10 years.
At £13 millionish per year, anyone could tell you that that isn’t enough. And some calculations have been made, as Uncounted summarises: Continue reading “Google’s taxes and the economic illiteracy of the Mayor of London”
In our January 2016 Tax Justice Network podcast:
What’s Scotland got to do with the plunder of Moldova? We take a look at the ‘Wild West’ of Scottish Limited Partnerships. Also, we discuss the tensions in the EU – is the net finally closing on multinational companies, the tax minimisation deals they’ve been getting from various European countries and the big four accountancy firms who advised them? Just how bad was the sell off of one of Colombia’s most profitable power generation companies? What’s former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair got to do with it? And why’s it been ignored outside Latin America? Also, we talk about the MEP who’s dragging the European Commission through the courts to get access to papers they’d rather we didn’t see. The Tax Justice Network’s John Christensen will eat his hat if they DON’T reveal what MEP Fabio De Masi suspects they will: ‘systematic political backup for a tax avoidance cartel that costs taxpayers in the EU hundreds of billions of dollars annually.’
“when you hear Cameron claiming Britain’s leading the world in tackling corruption, it’s beyond a joke.”
Ian Fraser, finance journalist and writer
“it is a bad look for the city of London and the UK, we are supposed to be democratic and free of corruption and yet here we are facilitating…you know, we are hosting some of the most egregious and destabilizing corruption you could possibly imagine”
Richard Smith, finance journalist and blogger at Naked Capitalism
“Europe has to change itself…If they want to prevent corrupt capital to flow into the EU they can do this… and it looks like it’s for the benefit of the developed countries to receive proceeds of corruption though they seem not to be corrupt themselves and I think it’s not right.”
Daria Kaleniuk, Anti-Corruption Action Centre in Ukraine
Featuring: The Tax Justice Network director John Christensen, Daria Kaleniuk of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre in Ukraine, Finance journalist and writer Ian Fraser @IanFraser, and finance journalist and blogger at Naked Capitalism Richard Smith @ncsmiff
Produced and presented by @Naomi_Fowler for the Tax Justice Network. You can follow @TheTaxcast on twitter and subscribe to the Taxcast either on our youtube channel or email naomi[at]taxjustice.net. Also available on iTunes.
Press Release
For immediate release. Jan 21, 2016
Europe must impose withholding taxes on payments, to target U.S. and other tax havens
Global transparency scheme in peril: strong action now needed
The Tax Justice Network is calling for the European Union to follow the United States in imposing a withholding tax against jurisdictions that do not meet new standards of tax transparency – starting with the United States itself.
John Christensen, director of the Tax Justice Network, said: Continue reading “Europe must impose withholding taxes on payments, to target U.S. and other tax havens”
Conference
Continue reading “Conference: No Taxes, No Development – Berlin, 18th February 2016”
Over at Uncounted, Alex Cobham (our Research Director) has written a review of a new tome for tax justice bookshelves: Capital flight from Africa: Causes, effects and policy issues, Ibi Ajayi & Léonce Ndikumana (eds.), 2015, Oxford University Press.
His review begins:
“This new volume from the AERC (African Economic Research Consortium) is a very welcome milestone in scholarship on the complex and contested areas of capital flight and illicit financial flows (IFF). It is more than that however. It is a powerful book in terms of what it represents; what it contributes; and above all, of what it challenges. These are discussed in turn below, before consideration of a major policy opportunity that now beckons.”
We’d urge you to read the whole thing, but we’ll single out a couple of points: Continue reading “Review: new book on Capital Flight from Africa”
A team with a great history, but what future?
This sad story, featuring a company registered in the British Virgin Islands and an offshore trust in Bermuda, is cross-posted from our partners at The Offshore Game. Continue reading “The Offshore Game: Bolton Wanderers on the brink”
We are delighted to note that Markus Meinzer’s book Steueroase Deutschland (Tax Haven Germany) is selling like hot kuchen in Germany: currently ranked at Number 1 in business books, and an even more remarkable Number 24 in all books – going head to head with the likes of “Harry Potter und der Gefangene von Askaban;” “Jamies 15-Minuten-Küche: Blitzschnell, gesund und superlecker,” and “Fifty Shades of Grey: Gefährliche Liebe“
Markus was on the prime time Markus Lanz show last night: you can spot him about 20 minutes http://humanrightsfilmnetwork.org/phentermine from the end.
We’re delighted to get the message out widely into new audiences. For more details on Tax Haven Germany in English, see our report on Germany for our Financial Secrecy Index (which Markus oversees.) Continue reading “TJN-backed tax haven book a bestseller in Germany”
We have recently been extremely exercised about Tax Haven USA, which has been busy (and rightly so) protecting itself from offshore tax havens, while at the same time becoming more of a tax haven for foreigners.
But we mustn’t forget that the United States isn’t a monolith: it’s a battleground between offshore cheerleaders (led by Wall Street), and reformers who dislike how the U.S. is hoovering up the world’s dirty money.
The offshore cheerleaders have had the upper hand for as long as we can remember, but that hasn’t stopped the indefatigable reformers from curbing the worst excesses. So it’s encouraging to highlight some good news every now and then, such as this welcome move last week:
“President Barack Obama’s administration, citing concern about the origin of funds used for all-cash purchases of luxury real estate, said it is stepping up scrutiny of transactions in New York City and Miami.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said on Wednesday that it will temporarily require title insurance companies to identify individuals behind companies that pay cash for high-end residential real estate in Manhattan and Miami-Dade County.”
OK, this isn’t exactly ambitious, but its a move in the right direction, and was supported by this New York Times editorial urging for these efforts to be broadened.
Update, Jan 21: here’s another sign of progress in Oregon, one of the miscreant states that is deep into the shell company business:
“Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins plans to tackle shell company abuse, an effort that could reverse a decade of state inaction and address Oregon’s reputation as a place hospitable to corporate scoundrels.”
And now, from our allies at the FACT coalition:
We are meanwhile preparing a bold proposal of our own, to tackle Tax Haven USA. More on this in the coming days.
In a new report on inequality, published today, Oxfam reveals that the richest one percent of the global population now owns more wealth that the rest of the world combined. In 2015, just 62 people had more wealth than the poorest half of the world’s population, Continue reading “New Oxfam report: An Economy For the 1% – and how to reform it”