Please, everyone, sign this Avaaz petition:
HSBC bank has just been caught red-handed helping some of the world’s mega-rich dodge taxes! We’d go to prison for this, but governments are treating these powerful people like they’re too big to jail. Let’s show them they’re not. Continue reading “We’d go to prison for this! Petition for tax justice”
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Following our blogging on Bill Black’s rightful excoriation of See-No-Evil London, a tweet from John Butler, a former managing director at Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank:[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_raw_js]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[/vc_raw_js][/vc_column][/vc_row]
The race to the bottom, London-style
Two quotes of the day, both from an article by Prof. Bill Black, a former U.S. bank regulator:
“Taxes were once termed the price we paid for civilization, but they now represent the price the wealthy brag to each other about refusing to pay as they pillage civilization.”
Quite so.
And then, in the following sentence:
“Because the City of London “won” the “regulatory race to the bottom” it is the worst “vector” for the epidemic of sleaze led by our most elite bankers.”
The first quote is, as we will explain, the direct consequence of the second, with the result being what the Washington Post call places like London “Tax havens for despots, criminals and the Fortune 500.” Continue reading “HSBC, tax evasion and the link to lax financial regulation”
From John Gapper in the Financial Times:
“In the past, the Swiss private banking industry operated very differently to the way it does today,” HSBC said this week in its mea culpa. Perhaps so, but I recall Swiss banks claiming in the mid-1990s — a decade before this happened — that tax evasion was in the past. After a while, one stops believing.”
Read our lips: Swiss banking secrecy is alive and well.
Press release from Global Witness
The HSBC tax scandal shows that UK law needs to be changed so that senior bankers are held criminally responsible when they oversee their institutions repeatedly breaking the law, said Global Witness in a new briefing today.
Continue reading “Drug cartels, terrorist financing risk and sanctioned regimes also on HSBC’s books under Lord Green”
Cross-posted from Uncounted: Alex Cobham
Yesterday I suggested some specific transparency measures to rebuild trust in light of #SwissLeaks. Today my colleagues at TJN pointed out that they are way ahead of me: here’s how.
Cross-posted from Uncounted: Alex Cobham
Much of the #SwissLeaks data has been in the hands of tax authorities for 5 years. Many of the questions raised relate to individuals and to particular regulators and governments – but there’s also a broader question that goes to the type of solutions that will address the broader loss of trust in tax authorities’ effectiveness and independence. Clear policy changes are needed to recover trust and accountability.
Continue reading “#SwissLeaks – Tax transparency for accountability”
Today’s media is awash with the latest revelations from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists about HSBC’s involvement in helping its clients to evade and avoid tax. BBC’s flagship documentary programme, Panorama, will be covering the story tonight. We have previously covered the international dimensions of this story here, here and here, for example. Continue reading “HSBC: the world’s favourite tax evasion shelter”
“I studied at Oxford . . . majored in western hypocrisy.”
Ed Miliband, leader of Britain’s main opposition party, has written to the local governments of the U.K. Overseas Territories (OTs) and Crown dependencies (CDs), advising them that, if elected, a Labour government would require them to publish publicly available registers of the ultimate beneficial owners of all the companies registered in their territories. This is good news, and we hope all other parties will follow suit. Continue reading “British government can (and should) impose public registries on its overseas territories”
Accounting multinational PWC has been condemned in a new report by the UK Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) for providing misleading evidence to Parliament and “promoting tax avoidance on an industrial scale.” The Committee, which has led the way globally in exposing the tax avoidance industry, has accused PWC of not disclosing its role in helping hundreds of multinational companies to shift profits to subsidiaries in tax haven Luxembourg in order to avoid paying taxes in the countries where the profits originated. Continue reading “PWC – Profits Without Conscience”
Guest blog from TJN Senior Adviser Professor Sol Picciotto, Chair of the civil society BEPS Monitoring Group. Continue reading “BEPS Through the Looking Glass: Where Do We Stand?”
For those of you who haven’t already read Treasure Islands, this recent headline in The Times might come as a shock. The article itself is behind a pay wall, though the jist is easily http://healthsavy.com captured: the head of Britain’s National Crime Agency, Keith Bristow, has warned that London is a global centre for criminal financial activity. What took him so long to discover this?
City launders ‘billions of pounds a day
Continue reading “Quelle Surprise! billions laundered daily through the City”
The following press release was posted this afternoon by Sven Giegold MEP: Continue reading “Luxembourg Leaks: EU Parliament Inquiry Committee a matter of political will”
In the run-up to the general election in the UK this May, a campaign is underway to persuade ALL candidates from ALL political parties to engage in a race-to-the-top to ensure fair and effective corporate taxation. Continue reading “Support a Tax Dodging Bill”
Former South African president Thabo Mbeki panel has presented the findings of his panel to the African Union summit, where they were adopted directly into the declaration. Now, we’re biased for all sorts of reasons (more on that below), but this is an historic moment – and probably the most important report yet produced on this issue. Continue reading “The Mbeki panel on illicit financial flows: Africa leads the way”
UPDATE: The report of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financil Flows chaired by President Mbeki was adopted by the African Union Summit meeting on 31st January 2015. This represents a major milestone for the global tax justice movement. Campaigners throughout Africa can now push their governments to implement the many measures identified by the report. Similarly, campaigners in non-AU countries, especially in Europe and North America, can put pressure on their governments to take strong action against OECD based secrecy jurisdictions and against the large community of multinational businesses and investors who avoid and evade tax in African countries. Tax Justice Network is proud of its contribution to the varied processes that have led over a number of years to the adoption of this report. Continue reading “Mbeki Report On Financial Crime Will Shift Global Tax Debate, Says Christian Aid”
From Gabriel Zucman, an image enhanced by David Walch of Attac-Austria:
Source: Gabriel Zucman; tinyurl.com/njy2al2. (NB Bermuda isn’t in the Caribbean, but in the North Atlantic.)
Juncker, of course, has denied responsibility for his role in Luxembourg’s tax haven activities such as the Luxleaks scandal. In his role at the head of the European Commission it’s politically important for him to say this. But this graph, we think, tells an important story.
January 2015
The Tax Justice Research Bulletin is written by Alex Cobham
This is the inaugural Tax Justice Research Bulletin, the first of a monthly series dedicated to tracking the latest developments in policy-relevant research on national and international taxation. This issue looks at a new paper using the longest series of tax data that exist for any one country (challenges to this very welcome!), and an article on property taxation in Africa. The Spotlight section focuses on inequality and redistribution – including an important study from UN-DESA, Joe Stiglitz’s take on Piketty, and answers to that question you’ve been quietly pondering: just how much could you tax the 1%? Continue reading “The Tax Justice Research Bulletin – 1(1)”
TJN’s John Christensen joins up with almost 70 other economists and academics in the following letter backing the Tax Dodging Bill proposal published in The Times today: Continue reading “Economists and academics back the Tax Dodging Bill”
The quote of the day comes from the widely read financial blog Stumbling and Mumbling, via FT Alphaville, and it goes like this:
“Bankers go home with big money for the same reason zookeepers go home with shit on their boots: if there’s a lot of stuff around, some of it will stick to you.”
And that could apply to offshore finance, of course. And accountancy. And . . .
There’s more to high remuneration than this, of course: read on.
From the Oxfam blog:
The corporate tax rules we live with today are from a by-gone era and remain essentially unchanged since the 1920s, from a time when world trade was less than 1 percent of what it is today, a time when companies “resided” very clearly in one country and “sourced” from another, a time when the digital economy didn’t exist and it was much more difficult to manipulate your companies’ activities to take advantage of different tax regimes to pay less tax.
Today’s multinationals can exploit yesterday’s tax system to shift profits and dodge tax. Big companies are running rings around the current tax system. And our government leaders are letting them get away with it.
Countries not companies
It’s countries, not companies, that need to do the job of re-writing the global tax rules. To some extent, that work has already begun. Oxfam has welcomed global efforts to reform the international tax system. But current efforts don’t go far enough. Under the current reform process, not all countries have a say, big companies have too much influence and countries that are effectively tax havens – like Luxembourg – are given a seat at the negotiating table. Would you let a tobacco company write cancer prevention policy? Would you let a fast food chain write healthy eating policy? Will we let tax havens make new global tax rules even less fair?
At the same time, developing countries – which may lose $100 billion a year from tax dodging and generous tax incentives – aren’t given an equal voice in the negotiations under way to rewrite the tax rules. This means that current talks exclude more than a third of the world’s population. That’s why Oxfam is calling for a World Tax Summit, where all countries are invited and where the rights and needs of citizens are prioritised over the profits of corporate giants. We can’t make tax fair if the journey to change isn’t fair. That journey must begin with a truly inclusive World Tax Summit.
Read more here.
