Jörg Wiegratz
Guest blog by Jörg Wiegratz, lecturer in political economy of global development, University of Leeds
We’re getting rather used to revelations about sharp practice in the banking sector. The row about HSBC’s tax services to rich clients has raised, yet again, crucial questions about the business culture which allows such scandals to emerge. Continue reading “Bankers have a moral compass, it just may not look like yours”
From Transparency International, a landmark study looking at the role the UK’s real estate sector has played in laundering the world’s money. We don’t have time to do this justice, but the world’s media has done a good job covering it.
Unmask the Corrupt: How UK Property Launders the Wealth of the Global Corrupt.
Also see this recent excellent New York Times series looking at dirty money in New York real estate, and an earlier Vanity Fair article, written by a TJN author, about an expensive apartment block in London.
Want to know why austerity is so popular among the political classes of so many countries? Well, there are many reasons, but here is one you may not have considered. From Prof. Prem Sikka, via email:
“Accountants are trained to be class warriors and austerity is written into their psyche as they are taught to reduce labour cost, but never the return to capital.”
Continue reading “Quote of the day – accountants and austerity”
Corporate tax-cutting, in action
The Financial Times columnist John Plender he has written an exellent article that contains a number of points – every single one of which, bar one, has previously been argued by TJN. We won’t summarise them all – please read the full article, if you have a subscription, but it’s almost uncanny how much he agrees with our position (whether he’s read our stuff, we don’t know.)
He begins by noting that the US corporate income tax take has fallen from 5.9 percent of GDP in the early 1950s, when a mini-ideology known as Public Choice Theory became all the rage, arguing that
“a predatory state was using its tax-collecting power to maximise revenue in the interests of self-serving politicians and bureaucrats.”
Continue reading “How to kickstart sluggish growth: tax corporations more”
February 2015 This is the second Tax Justice Research Bulletin, a monthly series dedicated to tracking the latest developments in policy-relevant research on national and international taxation. Continue reading “The Tax Justice Research Bulletin – 1(2)”
HSBC’s core values are under scrutiny. The bank has been implicated in one scandal after another, and the current leadership claims to be wanting to restore the bank’s reputation. But what reputation do they aim to restore? Continue reading “HSBC and the world’s oldest drug cartel”
From Jaimie Woo in the Huffington Post:
“A strangely popular proposal would give companies a temporary tax holiday, letting corporations bring back their money on paper, or “repatriate” it at an extremely low tax rate, thereby encouraging more corporate tax dodging in the future. The most ridiculous part? Some Members of Congress want to use this tax break that costs money to “pay for” badly needed infrastructure investments. How does that even make sense?“
Our emphasis added. Indeed. A good generic question not just for the United States, the subject of this particular article.
The documentary film UK Gold, looking at Britain’s role in the world of tax havens and in international tax issues more generally, is having its first network premiere tonight, on London Live. The music score is now available, courtesy of UK Uncut, here.
Details are here, with background reading from Richard Murphy, here.
And here is another reminder – as if one were needed – that the tax haven industry has achieved quite a degree of ‘capture’ not only of the UK policy making apparatus, but the media too.
More on the BBC and tax havens, here.
TJN has just co-signed a letter published by the U.S. Governmental Accountability Project (GAP,) drawing attention to the topsy-turvy situation where whistleblowers acting in the public interest are being extradited to other countries, under procedures that were originally created to fight against Mafia organisations, terrorist financiers, international criminals and so on.
Tools for fighting for the public interest are being turned against the public interest.
This letter focuses on tax evasion and it is aimed at public authorities in the United States. See GAP’s version of the letter here.
But this extradition issue obviously has relevance well beyond tax evasion, and far beyond the United States. Continue reading “It’s time to stop extraditing public-interest whistleblowers”
The Luxleaks whistleblower Antoine Deltour. Let’s not forget the others
From Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone magazine:
“This is the age of the whistleblower. From Chelsea Manning to Edward Snowden to the latest cloak-and-dagger lifter of files, ex-HSBC employee Hervé Falciani, whistleblowers are becoming to this decade what rock stars were to the Sixties — pop culture icons, global countercultural heroes.”
Among other things, it’s time to start treating jailed whistleblowers as prisoners of conscience.
We should exempt people blowing the whistle in the public interest from extradition procedures originally created to crack down on Mafia money, terrorist financing, and that kind of thing (update: see our co-signed letter on this, here.)
And much more.
Registration is open for the Queen’s University
Feminist Legal Studies International Women’s Day conference
Women and Tax Justice at Beijing+20: Taxing and Budgeting for Sex Equality
Mar. 6 from noon through dinner
Mar. 7 from 9 am to 5 pm
To register email [email protected]
Keynote lecture:
Dr. Attiya Waris, School of Law, University of Nairobi, Kenya;
Faculty of Law, National University of Rwanda, and
Queen’s University Principal’s Development Fund International Visitor –
‘Rights of Women and Taxation: Developing Country Perspectives’
For the complete program see: Programme – Women and Tax Justice at Beijing+20.
Sponsored by Feminist Legal Studies Queen’s, Women for Tax Justice,
FemTax International, Canadians for Tax Fairness, Faculty of Law,
Queen’s University, and SSHRC
Britain’s domicile rule is one of the greatest tools available to the world’s wealthiest people to shake of the pesky burden of tax, leaving the rest of us to kindly pay their share for them. It’s a slippery, vague concept, and lots of people who claim domicile status really ought not to be able to. With this short background, here’s our factoid of the day, courtesy of UK barrister Jolyon Maugham:
“In the last ten years (which is as far back as I checked), there’s only been one concluded challenge to domicile, nine years ago. There’s also a single indication of a challenge to come.”
Goodness. Coming in the wake of the HSBC scandal, which shows a resolute determination on the part of the government not to do anything to inconvenience the world’s wealthiest people, this is quite a shocker.
Yeah, right. Photo: Jill & David
For non-UK readers, HMRC is the UK tax authority. Source: Private Eye #1386
We’ve come across an interview in The Atlantic with Stephen Platt, an expert on financial crime prevention, contained in an article entitled How Dirty Money Gets Into Banks. As much as anything, we’ve taken it as an excuse to reproduce this fabulous cartoon in Britain’s Private Eye magazine, which rather speaks for itself in the wake of the HSBC scandal (see TJN’s “high grade tosh” comment in the New York Times yesterday on one element of this multi-headed hydra of a scandal.) Continue reading “How the ‘competitiveness’ dogma made banks corrupt”
Just what does a bank have to do to lose its licence?! We look at the fall out from #HSBCLeaks and ask how can we genuinely tackle criminality in global finance? Also: the latest research on fines and crimes in banking; why a recent threat to have UK Crown Dependencies and Overseas territories blacklisted won’t exactly have them shaking in their shoes; plus more scandal and unique analysis.
“The worst thing that can happen to you as a CEO of HSBC is to retire and move on and have to face the press 5 years down the road if you’re caught…” Jim Henry
Featuring: Director of The Tax Justice Network John Christensen, author of Treasure Islands NicholasShaxson, Economist and asset recovery specialist Jim Henry, HSBC whistleblower Herve Falciani. Produced and presented by @Naomi_Fowler for the Tax Justice Network.
You can download from this link here to listen anytime offline:
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The leading anti-corruption group Transparency International has called on authorities in the United Kingdom to launch a criminal investigation into HSBC in light of recent accusations against the bank. Continue reading “Transparency International calls on UK to prosecute HSBC”
From Koen Roovers, re-posted from Open Democracy:
Settling accounts: what happens after SwissLeaks?
By Koen Roovers, Financial Transparency Coalition
A major leak of incriminating HSBC records last week resulted in print and television news coverage around the globe, trended on Twitter for several days and prompted several governments to start long-anticipated investigations. Continue reading “Settling accounts: what happens after SwissLeaks?”
We’re going to quote from an article in 2012 by Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone magazine, which was examining the latest HSBC mega-scandal of the time.
He was outraged, as we all should be, at the lightness of the sentencing in a case that had involved shifting money for the massacre-happy Mexican Sinaloa cartel, for groups linked to Al Qaeda; for Russian gangsters; and also the provision of help to countries like Iran, Sudan and North Korea to evade sanctions.
HSBC got away with a fine equivalent to five weeks’ profits, and HSBC itself agreed to “partially defer” bonus compensation for its most senior officials. It was sickening then. If you want to be sickened now, then read this.
Here is Taibbi’s recipe for how the action should have gone: Continue reading “How to deal with the likes of HSBC”
This is devastating. The Economist has just picked up on an issue that is at the core of TJN’s Finance Curse analysis, with a new article entitled Warning: too much finance is bad for the economy. It notes:
“One of the biggest political issues in recent years has been that Wall Street has done better than Main Street. That is not just a populist slogan. A new study from the Bank for International Settlements (the central bankers’ central bank, as it is dubbed) shows exactly why rapid finance sector growth is bad for the rest of the economy.” Continue reading “New official warning: too much finance is bad for your economy”
Forgive us for another UK-focused blog today, but there’s a lot of British sleaze about at the moment. In this one we are going to highlight a graph, courtesy of the Bank of England (p10 here), which rather speaks for itself.
Courtesy of David Quentin.
Yes, yes, this ignores housing wealth and so on. But still.
And the reasons for this shabby state of affairs?
Well, this is one good place to start. Or you might try this rather interesting little gender-focused piece. Or . . . even if we were to cite only the possible reasons listed on our own site, the list would seemingly be endless.
Anyway, that’s the UK. How is it in your country?
The Minneapolis Skyline
From The Atlantic in the U.S., an article entitled “The Miracle of Minneapolis” which looks at the demonstrable outperformance of this mid-sized U.S. city, in terms of being a good place to live. It’s summed up in an old adage:
‘It’s really hard to get people to move to Minneapolis, and it’s impossible to get them to leave.’
The lure of this city will of course be rather a matter of opinion, but the evidence marshalled suggests that there is something pretty good going on here, in comparison to other places. And The Atlantic author, Derek Thompson, asks why this might be. Well, the answer is interesting: Continue reading “The “Miracle of Minneapolis” and a local ceasefire in tax wars”
[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]From Peter Oborne, former chief political commentator for the UK’s mainstream Telegraph newspaper, a tweet that effectively illustrates the ‘country capture’ aspect of the Finance Curse.[/vc_column_text][vc_raw_js]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[/vc_raw_js][vc_column_text] The article by Oborne, for those interested in Britain or keen to understand one of the tools that financial institutions use in ‘capturing’ the minds of the general public, it is well worth reading in its own right. It’s devastating.
The Telegraph, we should add, is owned by two very peculiar wealthy brothers, the Barclay Brothers, who have a long and unhappy tax haven history (also here.) Continue reading “HSBC scandal latest: how the bank captured a British newspaper”
Watch David Whyte discussing the nature of corruption in Britain:
Banks accused of rate-fixing and promoting tax evasion. Members of Parliament cooking the books. Major defence contractors investigated over suspect arms deals. Police accused of being paid off by tabloids. The headlines are unrelenting these days. Perhaps it’s high time we ask: just exactly how corrupt is Britain? Continue reading “How Corrupt is Britain? New book coming soon”