
A response to Ben Heinman’s article on corruption in The Atlantic.
Friday’s top news stories from Global Financial Integrity
Thursday’s top news stories from Global Financial Integrity
Jack Blum, chairman of the Task Force’s Tax Justice Network-USA, recently sat down with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! to talk about an array of tax justice issues. Mr. Blum has decades of experience on tax issues, both on the legal side as an attorney and the legislative side as an investigator for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism, and International Operations. He mentions a new documentary he was involved with, We’re Not Broke, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
Today, Global Financial Integrity launched it’s new report, Mexcio: Illicit Financial Flows, Macroeconomic Imbalances, and the Underground Economy in Washington D.C. and Mexico City. An excerpt from the press release: MEXICO CITY / WASHINGTON, DC – Crime, corruption and tax evasion cost the Mexican economy US$872 billion between 1970 and 2010 according to a new report [...]
Tom Cardamone, Managing Director of the Task Force and Global Financial Integrity, was on San Francisco’s KQED radio yesterday for a 30-minute segment.
Nick Mathiason’s article in The Guardian’s The Comment is Free went up today – Five Steps to Combat Global Tax Evasion
In August 2009, France and Switzerland amended their tax treaty. The new treaty stated that the two countries would from now on exchange upon request all information necessary for tax enforcement, including bank information otherwise protected by Swiss bank secrecy laws. In the following months, one of France’s richest persons and her wealth manager were taped discussing what to do with two undeclared Swiss bank accounts, worth $160 millions. After a visit to Switzerland, the wealth manager concluded that keeping the funds in Swiss banks or bringing them back to France would be too risky. He suggested that the funds be transferred to Hong-Kong, Singapore, or Uruguay, three tax havens which had not committed to exchange information with France. After the tapes were made public, they were widely commented in French newspapers and eventually the funds were repatriated to France.
An Op-Ed by the Task Force was published today by Politico on Mitt Romney, Bain Capital, and tax avoidance in Bermuda.
This Saturday marks the two-year anniversary of Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission, the decision which opened the door in the United States for unlimited corporate contributions to campaigns and political action committees, a practice that had long been forbidden. Most organizations which engage in political advocacy, including campaigns, are forced to disclose who donated how much money to their group.
A statistician analyzes Global Financial Integrity’s Illicit Financial Flow numbers, find they check out and are not fake.