Quote of the day: tax and the rule of law

From Cassandra Does Tokyo, a blogger we’ve not come across, via FT Alphaville:

“Why is it so seemingly difficult for the uber-beneficiaries of the rule of law to reconcile their (mostly fiscal) responsibilities to the entente with The People which is the very fount that allows them, and increasingly one might argue, their less-deserving progeny, to maintain a position in the stratosphere of power and control, with a recognition that the very legitimacy of their reign is conferred by The People through the rule of law? Continue reading “Quote of the day: tax and the rule of law”

Tax + transparency fact-finding mission: report from Asian, African, Latin American experts

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The OECD calls itself the global standard setter, but how representative is it?

The OECD calls itself the global standard setter, but how representative is it?

This newly published report is the outcome of a Tax and Transparency Fact-finding Mission carried out by a delegation of independent experts from Asia, Africa and Latin America in October and November 2013, based on visits to Switzerland, France, Norway, United Nations, The OECD, and the European Commission. See a Spanish version here. Continue reading “Tax + transparency fact-finding mission: report from Asian, African, Latin American experts”

On the new Asian Tax Justice Alliance

Asian tax justiceFrom our colleagues at Kepa in Finland, describing the birth of a region-wide consolidation of the previously scattered tax justice movements in Asia.

“Over 60 leaders of people´s movements, civil society organizations and trade unions came together in Bangkok and took up the task of building a long-pending regional alliance on Tax Justice in Asia.

Despite the differences in country contexts, organizational capacities, political opinions and positions of individual members, the 2-day regional assembly was able to conclude the formation of “Asian Tax and Fiscal Justice Alliance” and jointly set out initial action plans.

The Coordinating Committee will soon convene its first meeting and an official Asian Declaration on Tax Justice will be released. The newly founded Asian Tax Justice and Fiscal Alliance will serve as a platform to promote exchanges, cooperation and joint efforts within the region on tax justice work. It will also work closely with the Global Alliance for Tax Justice and draw on its resources and expertise.

We have seen earlier stirrings of work on regional tax justice alliances in Asia (see also here), and in various individual countries, but this is a highly promising development. We wish them all the very best, and look forward to a long and fruitful relationship.

More on our international network here; see the Tax Advocacy Toolkit here, developed by Christian Aid, SOMO, TJN, TJN-Africa, And Action on Economic Reforms.

Freeports: now Luxembourg adds to the sleaze

Luxembourg freeportUpdate: fascinating article by The Independent on this freeport.

In June we noted that France’s Médiapart had done an excellent investigation into Freeports: special kinds of tax haven offerings that fill a particular niche in the grand, constantly mutating global offshore ecosystem.  Before that, The Economist did a similarly excellent piece, in English, aptly titled Freeports: Über-warehouses for the ultra-rich. It noted: Continue reading “Freeports: now Luxembourg adds to the sleaze”

New book: fighting corporate abuse

Fighting Corporate AbuseA new book titled “Fighting Corporate Abuse: Beyond Predatory Capitalism” is to be published by Pluto. The authors include two TJN Senior Advisers, Prem Sikka and Sol Picciotto.

The book offers public policies for tackling corporate abuses, as the blurb notes: Continue reading “New book: fighting corporate abuse”

The Taxcast, September 2014

The latest Taxcast:

‘Unpatriotic corporate deserters’? We ask why so many US companies are relocating, and what we can do about it (update: as the Taxcast was coming to press, we have some news). Also, the less reported side of the Scottish vote on independence, the OECD’s latest ‘action’ plan to tackle international tax avoidance and much, much more.

Featuring: Tax Justice Network Director John Christensen, economist Jim Henry, accountant Richard Murphy, US President Obama and OECD head Pascal Saint-Amans. Produced and presented by @Naomi_Fowler for the Tax Justice Network.

Download to listen offline anytime

http://traffic.libsyn.com/taxcast/Taxcast_Sept_2014.mp3

Subscribe to the Taxcast either by emailing the proucer on naomi [at] taxjustice.net to be added to the mailout list or go here: rss feed http://taxcast.libsyn.com/rss

 

 

OECD again pretends it’s solved the problem of financial secrecy

OECDThe OECD seems to have learned from experience that if you make a grand, unsubstantiated claim in support of your work, half the world’s journalists will cut and paste your statements without stopping to check how true they are. For example, in 2011, they grandly announced that The Era of Bank Secrecy Is Over, garnering plenty of headlines along those lines. As we have noted subsequently, several times: Oh no it isn’t.

Now, from a few days ago, there is this headline in the Sydney Morning Herald: OECD declares end to bank secrecy. Continue reading “OECD again pretends it’s solved the problem of financial secrecy”

Don’t sign OECD tax treaties: the case of Uganda

Airtel Zain

Update, Dec 9: Martin Hearson adds his own updated analysis of Uganda’s tax treaties in a Powerpoint presentation here.

A while ago we quoted U.S. tax expert Lee Sheppard excoriating OECD model tax treaties, in a fiery presentation which included such gems as:

For multinationals, “there are countries for which there is extraction, and countries where there are customers, and these are all countries from which income has got to be stripped. And the rubric that allows this is the international consensus. It is the whole treaty network. The treaties protect multinationals primarily. That’s all they were ever for: to make life comfortable for multinationals”

Background on tax treaties: Continue reading “Don’t sign OECD tax treaties: the case of Uganda”

Cayman Compass: Public registers would foil tax criminals

Cayman Compass has just published the following letter from TJN and Transparency International in response to an article by Carlyle Roger: Continue reading “Cayman Compass: Public registers would foil tax criminals”

BEPS – minor victories but we risk losing the war

xThe following are detailed thoughts on the OECD BEPS year one outcomes prepared by friends and colleagues at Eurodad (the European Network on Debt and Development). Continue reading “BEPS – minor victories but we risk losing the war”

Links – Sept 19

We’ve not had links for a week, for capacity reasons. Here is a somewhat quirky selection:

Alibaba’s corporate structure: just look at those British tax havens FT Alphaville

The Life and Times of John Fredriksen – Putin’s “Bagman” in London Fredriksen Watch
Part 3. The first English translation of an investigation by Norway’s Dagens Næringsliv (Daily Business) into John Fredriksen, the London-based billionaire. See also Parts 1 and Part 2.

Time we scrutinised China’s tax treaty practice, too Martin Hearson
From July, but important. See also the earlier UN transfer pricing manual: what Brazil, India and China do differently

Inverting Corporations Should Be Required to Pay Taxes Owed on Profits Held Offshore Citizens for Tax Justice
A simple, obviously good idea, now drafted as legislation.

Big economies take aim at the firms running circles around their taxmen The Economist.
On the OECD’s BEPS project for taxing multinational corporations. Cites TJN. See also our earlier coverage.

British Virgin Islands suffers amid push against money laundering FT
Poor suffering facilitators of dirty money. A Guernsey official says it’s “quite a telling story” that HSBC was refusing to open BVI accounts.

Appleby: offshore deals continue to rise – Bermuda News
some go up, some go down

California Bans a Tax-Break Commission Good Jobs First
California enacts the U.S.’ first ever ban on tax-break consultants receiving percentage of awards. A good idea for others to copy

Australia to adopt common reporting standard Australian Financial Review
Helped by the work of our indefatigable campaigning colleagues down under 

Continued Struggle in Bangladesh: VAT is Regressive to Poor Equity BD
See also:
Who Will Bell the Cat? Revenue Mobilization and MNC’s Tax Evasion in Bangladesh
Whose money and whose interest? Illicit money flys off Bangladesh

 A Quality of Growth Index for Developing Countries: A Proposal IMF

Letter to Thomas Donohue – Americans for tax fairness.
Objecting to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s deceptive advertising campaign defending corporate inversions

Have economists been captured by business interests? Harvard Business Review
Obviously they have, despite the denials, but here’s an entertaining study looking at just what’s going on

On today’s tax naughty step. Jolyon Maugham.
On how a UK subsidy for the arts turned into a tax subsidy free for all

OECD tax boss says OECD tax haven is a victim

PascalPascal Saint-Amans, the OECD’s head of tax, has made some rather ill-advised comments in an otherwise interesting interview with the Irish Times. This concerns the OECD’s so-called BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) project to try and crack down on some of the more egregious loopholes in international tax rules that let multinational corporations get away with such abuses such as the Double Irish. It’s a project that we have broadly welcomed as an improvement on a very poor situation, but we (of course) have several gripes with it too Continue reading “OECD tax boss says OECD tax haven is a victim”

How many people in a democracy want lower taxes?

Well, that clearly depends on the country, and the time of day. Britain is reputed to be one of the more conservative, lower-tax ones, at least among OECD countries. But this graph, from Oxford economics professor Simon Wren-Lewis about UK attitudes on the size of the state, should certainly give its politicians pause for thought.

tax and spend

 

The graph, which draws on data from the British Social Attitudes Survey 2014, kind of speaks for itself, but he summarises:

“The interesting result is how few people want lower taxes – always below 10%. The changes involve shifts between more spending and taxes to no change, rather than to lower spending and taxes.”

Rather like TJN, in fact. It’s not correct to say that we generally advocate “higher” taxes (which begs the question, ‘higher than what?’) We just like to push back steadily against the evidence-free assertions, routinely peddled by corporate shills and politicians, that tax cuts are the route to a brighter future, always.

Just saying.

 

 

Quote of the day: shareholder value and economists

Shareholder value

A book by Lynn Stout

From a fascinating long article about the genesis of high executive pay in the United States, a quote from French financial economist Jean-Charles Rochet:

“Everyone knows that corporations are not just cash machines for their shareholders, but that they also provide goods and services for their consumers, as well as jobs and incomes for their employees. Everyone, that is, except most economists.”

We have written at length about the shareholder value movement, which has been one of the driving forces behind aggressive tax avoidance.

 

 

No Role for Public Scrutiny in OECD Plan to Curb Corporate Tax Dodging

FTC

From the Financial Transparency Coalition, of which TJN is an active member: 

No Role for Public Scrutiny in OECD Plan to Curb Corporate Tax Dodging

For Immediate Release
September 16, 2014

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) new recommendations to fight multinational corporate tax avoidance look robust from the onset, but there’s something missing. Since the most vital reporting information will remain out of the reach of ordinary citizens, the recommendations don’t do enough to bring transparency to a global financial system badly in need of it. Continue reading “No Role for Public Scrutiny in OECD Plan to Curb Corporate Tax Dodging”

Petition: tell the UN to stop tax abuse

Avaaz ASAPWe recently noted an open letter to Ban Ki-Moon, by the group Academics Stand Against Poverty, calling on the United Nations to put an end to tax abuse.

Now here’s the Avaaz petition. Please sign, and pass it on. Continue reading “Petition: tell the UN to stop tax abuse”

Anatomy of a tax haven: how the finance curse strikes Jersey

The investigative newspaper Médiapart, which is fast gaining a reputation in France for hard-hitting reporting, has a special report on Jersey, Britain’s (and to a lesser extent France’s) favourite tax haven. It is fascinating, not least because it explicitly references our work on the Finance Curse, where countries that become over-dependent on financial services activity suffer many symptoms similar to those that are over-dependent on minerals like oil or gas. Continue reading “Anatomy of a tax haven: how the finance curse strikes Jersey”

Country by country reporting: here it comes

From Tax Research, reposted in full, with a few key links added:

The era of country-by-country reporting is arriving

The OECD has announced its 2014 outcomes from the Base Erosion and Profits Shifting process this afternoon. As far as I am concerned the key issue is country-by-country reporting, which is the subject of BEPS Action Plan 13. The summary on this issue, just published (sent to me by mail, a link will follow) is: Continue reading “Country by country reporting: here it comes”

Quote of the day – on tax laws and corporate partners

SullivanFrom Marty Sullivan (pictured), a top U.S. tax expert, speaking last year:

“What politicians keep forgetting is that you can’t ‘partner’ with the corporate community when it comes to writing the tax laws,” Sullivan explains. “They’re not partners — they are adversaries.”

Someone ought to send a memo to every government in the world. Such as this one.

 

 

Three Illicit Flows Targets for the Post-2015 Framework

Cobham

Alex Cobham

From Alex Cobham at the Center for Global Development, with hat tip to Tax Research. For an earlier article about the post-2015 framework, please click here.

Three Illicit Financial Flows Targets

There is broad consensus on the need for the post-2015 successor framework to the Millennium Development Goals to respond to the challenge of illicit financial flows (IFF). Typically IFF involve the hidden movement of profits, hidden transfers of ownership, or hidden income streams. The main motivations are tax evasion (corporate and individual); laundering the proceeds of crime (largely human trafficking and drug trafficking); and corruption (including the theft of state assets and the bribery of public officials).  Continue reading “Three Illicit Flows Targets for the Post-2015 Framework”

UNCTAD: the time for tax justice has come

UNCTAD

Image from the UNCTAD report

A press release about the latest UNCTAD Trade and Development report 2014:

“Governments, from rich and poor countries alike, should be able to finance the investment and other public spending required to meet the demands of their citizens for a more prosperous and secure life. Mobilizing domestic fiscal revenue is key, as in the long run it is more reliable than aid and more sustainable than debt, and less subject than either to conditions that restrict policy space.” Continue reading “UNCTAD: the time for tax justice has come”

On the human rights of bad guys

Community chestThere’s been a lot of talk recently in the human rights field about tax justice issues – and rightly so. Now a new academic book to add to the collection, considering things from a different angle. It’s called The human rights of bad guys: corruption, asset recovery, and the protection of property in public international law, and the blurb goes:

“In recovering assets that are or that represent the proceeds, objects, or instrumentalities of grand corruption, do states violate the human rights of politically exposed persons, their relatives, or their associates? Continue reading “On the human rights of bad guys”