Anthea Lawson of Global Witness, speaking at TEDx in the British Houses of Parliament. Enjoy.
From the International Centre for Tax and Development:
A major obstacle to cross-country research on the role of revenue and taxation in development has been the weakness of available data. This paper presents a new Government Revenue Dataset (GRD), developed through the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD). The dataset meticulously combines data from several major international databases, as well as drawing on data compiled from all available International Monetary Fund (IMF) Article IV reports. Continue reading “Developing countries: a new government revenue dataset”
From Citizens for Tax Justice in the U.S.
“The idea of repealing the corporate tax seems to have just one virtue, which is that it’s simplistic enough to fit into a blog post or op-ed. In every other way this idea is terrible.”
We’ve written about this before, with more to come soon.
From Prem Sikka:
“The US$11 billion merger of Burger King and Canadian coffee and doughnuts chain Tim Hortons is the latest example of a tax inversion move. The deal will see BK transfer its company headquarters from the US to Canada and is clearly not driven just by a quest for control of the markets, but also by tax considerations.”
Rolling Stone has a good in-depth investigation of the issue, here.
From a 2013 paper by Thomas Rixen, another set of arguments why tax havens have helped generate financial risks. The paper itself argues that financial regulatory competition – core TJN fare – is much overlooked. He focuses on:
“an aspect that has so far been under-analyzed in the post-crisis literature – state or jurisdictional competition for financial activity as a serious obstacle to regulatory reform.”
And in the paper he notes five ways in which tax havens, or secrecy jurisdictions (he uses the term Offshore Financial Centres, or OFCs) generate financial risks: Continue reading “Shadow banking: why tax havens increase financial risks”
From ActionAid, a UK-focused campaign which could easily be done in other countries:
Love your community, hate tax dodging
All over the world people are taking action to end corporate tax dodging.
As political parties decide their priorities in the build up to the general election in May, now is the time to make sure they hear our call loud and clear for tax justice. Will you help get your town on board?
Get Involved
People all over the UK are taking action to get their towns on board with the campaign. Find out what’s happening in your local area and join the campaign.
If you’re in the UK, get started here. If you’re not in the UK, why not think about setting something up in your own country.
From Prof. Colin Mayer of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, author of the book in the image:
“The corporation is a rent extraction vehicle for the shortest-term shareholders.”
That’s quite a statement, and it comes via Martin Wolf in the Financial Times. The FT article discussing shareholder value is excellent, and right up TJN’s street. It contains introductory gems such as:
“Almost nothing in economics is more important than thinking through how companies should be managed and for what ends. Unfortunately, we have made a mess of this. That mess has a name: it is “shareholder value maximisation”.”
As we have remarked many times before, short-term shareholder maximisation has often been used as a justification for aggressive tax avoidance (which journalists routinely but incorrectly described as ‘perfectly legal’) and many other nefarious acts. We have also demonstrated, among other things, that corporate managers have no fiduciary duties to avoid tax.
But read the whole article: as we said, it’s another excellent piece by the FT’s chief economics correspondent.
Recently we wrote about a remarkable blog by Jolyon Maugham, a tax barrister, a view from the front lines, which we’ll repeat again today, because it’s so startling:
“I have on my desk an Opinion – a piece of formal tax advice – from a prominent QC at the Tax Bar. In it, he expresses a view on the law that is so far removed from legal reality that I do not believe he can genuinely hold the view he says he has. At best he is incompetent. But at worst, he is criminally fraudulent: he is obtaining his fee by deception. And this is not the first such Opinion I have seen. Such pass my desk All The Time.
The “he” in question, I shall not name. But the brief description in the above paragraph will be sufficient to enable that part of the tax profession that regularly uses tax Counsel to narrow the possibilities down to slightly under half a dozen names. These are the Boys Who Won’t Say No – the “Boys” for short – and we all know who they are.” Continue reading “Risk mining: what tax avoidance is, and exactly why it’s anti-social”
In the latest Tax Justice Network podcast:
August 2014, Edition 32: When was the last time you used a $100 bill, a 500 euro note or a 1,000 Swiss Franc note? We look at how Western banks and Treasuries are facilitating crime through high denomination bills. Also, tax haven reputation damage-management, Switzerland pulls a fast one on India, the European bankers raking in the bonuskis from sanctions against Russia and how the tax haven of Mauritius is…erm…expanding its portfolio.
Produced by @Naomi_Fowler for the Tax Justice Network.
“I think it’s a terrible public policy to facilitate organised crime”
Jim Henry
Featuring: John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network, author of The Laundrymen: Inside the World’s 3rd Largest Business and many other books on financial crime Jeffrey Robinson, Assistant US Attorney General Lanny Breuer, economist and asset recovery specialist Jim Henry. Presented and poduced by @Naomi_Fowler for the Tax Justice Network.
Home of the Taxcast (where you can also subscribe to the Taxcast RSS feed and you can find all the previous Taxcasts) www.tackletaxhavens.com/
You can download to listen any time from here:
In this half-hour
BBC interview with renowned lawyer Helena Kennedy, investigative judge Eva Joly (a great friend of TJN) talks about her life fighting corrupt activities at the highest echelons of business and politics. Continue reading “A Law Unto Themselves – Eva Joly discusses her fight against high level corrupt practices”
Are tax barristers enriching themselves by signing-off on dodgy legal opinions relating to tax avoidance? Surely not. The legal profession is a bastion of probity and wouldn’t tolerate such shenanigans. Or maybe they would. Continue reading “The Boys Who Won’t Say No”
Window dressing at best?
Both G8 and G20 have committed to tackling tax haven secrecy. In the past 18 months they have made specific commitments to create registers of beneficial ownership of companies, though we are far from convinced they are prepared to take every necessary step to prevent crooks from hiding behind offshore legal structures. Continue reading “Quote of the day – on trusts and public registries”
We have just heard that Harold Crook’s (Surviving Progress) new film, entitled The Price We Pay, is to receive its world première on 5th September 2014 at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Continue reading “Tax haven film world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival”
From TheCityUK, a powerful lobbying body that supports the City of London and generally supports financial deregulation (see here for more on that):
“We are working with the Russian Government on a major project to help Moscow develop as an international financial centre, creating new business opportunities for our member firms. Continue reading “On the City of London’s love-fest with Moscow”
Tax Inspectors Without Borders, an idea that originated out of the Tax Justice Network, is coming closer to reality.
The OECD website has a section, which we think is fairly new, saying:
“The Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) objective is to enable the transfer of tax audit knowledge and skills to tax administrations in developing countries through a real time, “learning by doing” approach. Experts – being currently serving or recently retired tax officials – will be deployed to work directly with local tax officials on current audits and audit-related issues concerning international tax matters, and to share general audit practices.
In addition to improvements in the quality and consistency of audits and the transfer of knowledge to recipient administrations (tax administrations seeking assistance), broader benefits are also anticipated including the potential for more revenues, greater certainty for taxpayers and encouraging a culture of compliance through more effective enforcement.” Continue reading “Tax Inspectors Without Borders – an update”
From Christian Aid, a press release aimed concerning possible tax evasion in Zambia, and aimed at UK Chancellor George Osborne:
Christian Aid urges George Osborne to intervene on secret bank tax report
Christian Aid is appealing to George Osborne to help secure the release of a report by the European Investment Bank on whose Board of Governors he sits.
The charity has written to the Chancellor about the European Investment Bank’s formal refusal to publish its report into allegations that a mining company controlled by multinational Glencore evaded tax in Zambia, one of the world’s poorest countries.
In refusing to publish the secret report, the Bank’s top managers have refused to follow the advice of their own Complaints Mechanism, which argued that it should publish a redacted version.
The Bank, which is owned by the UK and other EU members, is now proposing to make its ‘transparency’ policy still more secretive, apparently to avoid similar challenges in future.
Joseph Stead, Senior Economic Justice Adviser at Christian Aid, said: “This is a scandal. The Bank is suppressing the publication on a report on a matter of significant public interest, both in Europe and in Africa: did a Glencore-controlled company evade tax or not?
“Christian Aid has today written to George Osborne, asking him to use his power as a member of the Bank’s Board of Governors to help overturn this absurd decision and ensure that the Bank’s new transparency policy makes the organisation less, not more secretive.”
When the UK hosted G8 countries’ summit meeting last summer, Mr Osborne joined Prime Minister David Cameron in stressing the huge importance of tax and transparency for people everywhere. In an article published at the time, Mr Osborne promised “action to help developing countries collect tax that is due to them”.
He said: “We will champion a new agenda of transparency and accountability in developing countries. With the authority that comes from meeting our international commitments on aid, Britain is well placed to tackle the causes, not just the symptoms of poverty, such as corruption and lack of transparency. As part of this work, we are clear that the developed world must lead by example.”
Christian Aid’s Joseph Stead said: “We hope that Mr Osborne will lead the way on reversing the EIB’s secretive approach. The Bank should at the very least follow the advice of its own Complaints Mechanism colleagues, who investigated Christian Aid’s complaint and recommended publication of the report in redacted form.
“The UK and other EU governments own the EIB. It is time that they dragged the Bank into the light, so people can find out more about the projects to which it lends – including whether those involved pay their taxes. In 2013 alone, the Bank lent 75 billion Euros to infrastructure projects including motorways and power stations in Europe and beyond – so it affects the lives of millions.”
According to the 2013 Aid Transparency Index, the EIB is already more secretive than most other multilateral organisations. The Index rated it as ‘poor’ – one rung above the worst rating of ‘very poor’, as part of an assessment of 60 organisations.
Ends
For more information please contact Rachel Baird at Christian Aid on 00 44 (0)207 523 2446 or [email protected]
In a ‘we-told-you-so’ blog a few days ago we recently noted media reports about the failed UK-Swiss tax deal, which revealed that the UK has sent a team to Switzerland to re-open the useless deal. We warned at the time that it wasn’t going to reap anything like the sums that had been promised. And so it has turned out.
Now we’ve written a letter to the UK Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, asking that the U.K. look at the long report we wrote at the time the deal was signed in 2011 outlining the loopholes in the deal and ways to fix them.
Please click here to read our short letter.
A guest blog by Cat Turner, author and campaigner based in the Isle of Man.
“To be, or not to be, a tax haven”
As a campaigner for social and environmental justice, I’ve been following with interest the recent debates on whether we on the Isle of Man are – in fact – a ‘tax haven’. The debate’s rumbled around for decades, of course, pretty much ever since the gazes of the UK EU, US and OECD, began focusing on their various perspectives of harmful tax practices. Continue reading “Guest blog from Isle of Man: To be, or not to be, a tax haven?”
We have just published our 2013 accounts.
The front page notes: Continue reading “TJN’s 2013 accounts”
John Oliver at Occupy Wall Street, 2011
We’re not going out on a limb to write a blog about the world-famous U.S./British satirist John Oliver, former sidekick of the Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart. There’s a good tax justice angle, as you will see. An article in Radio Times begins:
“Fifty-two million. That’s the current figure for the total number of views on YouTube for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver – an HBO political comedy hosted by a Brit. Not bad for a show that airs at 11pm on Sunday nights on cable, and only started three months ago.” Continue reading “The John Oliver show: why it works”
Update: see Tax Research article entitled Tax haven ownership of UK property might cost £2 billion year in tax avoidance – using some of the FT data.
The current top story on the Financial Times website (at least at 8am UK time) is entitled Tax haven buyers set off property alarm in England and Wales. And it begins:
“At least £122bn of property in England and Wales is held through companies in offshore tax havens where ownership is difficult to trace, a Financial Times analysis of Land Registry data has found.
Continue reading “Tax haven buyers set off property alarm in London”
Last week our German colleagues reported on the investigations into Lionel Messi’s complex offshore web (German version here, English here). Now Global Witness has issued the following:
According to a Spanish prosecutor’s document, Lionel Messi’s alleged multi-million euro tax evasion scheme (1) relied upon hiding the names of the real owners of companies registered in the UK, Switzerland, Uruguay and Belize. Continue reading “Did Messi hide behind offshore structures in UK, Switzerland, Uruguay and Belize?”