In 2006 the Global Forum published a review of the legal and administrative frameworks in the areas of transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes covering 82 jurisdictions, entitled Tax Co-operation: Towards a Level Playing Field – 2006 Assessment by the Global Forum on Taxation. This publication was followed by four annual assessments, with the 2010 publication covering 93 jurisdictions.
Following the restructuring of the Global Forum, a program of indepth peer reviews was launched in 2010. This 2011 Report on Progress publication describes the progress made since the Global Forum launched its peer review mechanism in 2010.
The World Bank’s private-sector entity – the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – seeks to increase tax payments to the government in developing countries through supporting their natural resource projects. This report documents that this aim can be undermined by IFCclients’ tax planning. IFC’s response is that “it is not likely to be true in almost all projects within the extractive industries”.
IFC wants to “create opportunity for people to escape poverty and improve their lives” through private-sector development in poor countries. Oil, gas and mining companies are among those receiving support from IFC. For each project IFC mentioned, the generation of revenues for government in the form of royalties and taxes” are expected as a development outcome. It estimates that authorities in developing countries received 7 billion US dollars from IFC-supported extractives projects in 2009.
Corruption thrives on secrecy, when undisturbed by public access to information about government and business activities. Countering it requires public participation and transparency in anti-corruption efforts and in governance.
This is recognised in the UN Convention against Corruption in Article 13 on civil society participation and access to information and in other UNCAC provisions. Additionally, Article 19 and other provisions of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, provide for a right to freedom of expression and to access to information held by public bodies and calls on states of their own accord to put information of public interest into the public domain and to establish procedures to enable easy, prompt, effective and practical access to information.
The time has come to act. Beyond shedding light on the devastating impact of grand corruption, the Arab spring has revealed major anti-money laundering deficiencies, and the huge difficulties of getting the money back even after the dictator has been pushed from power.\
Corrupt money transferred out of developing and transitional economies is conservatively estimated at US$20 to US$40 billion per year. Hundreds of billions in much needed funds for development have already been taken over the last few decades. While recovery of stolen funds could greatly contribute to development in those countries, prevention of such outflows through greater financial transparency and anti-money laundering efforts would reduce the harm done by corruption in the first place. By ratifying the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), States Parties have made commitments on both of these issues.
In July 2010, the U.S. Congress passed Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act, a measure requiring companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to publicly report how much they pay governments for access to oil, gas and minerals, country-by-country and project-by-project. The SEC is developing final rules to put the disclosure requirement into effect.
In October 2011, the European Commission issued draft directives requiring companies listed on EU stock exchanges and large private companies based in member states to disclose their payments to governments for oil, gas, minerals and timber, country-by-country and per project. After developing a final version, the European Parliament and European Council will send the measure to EU member states for implementation.
Criminals, especially drug traffickers, may have laundered around $1.6 trillion, or 2.7 per cent of global GDP, in 2009, according to a new report by UNODC. This figure is consistent with the 2 to 5 per cent range previously established by the International Monetary Fund to estimate the scale of money-laundering.
Less than 1 per cent of global illicit financial flows is currently being seized and frozen, according to the report Estimating illicit financial flows resulting from drug trafficking and other transnational organized crime. “Tracking the flows of illicit funds generated by drug trafficking and organized crime and analysing how they are laundered through the world’s financial systems remain daunting tasks,” acknowledged Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of UNODC.
Most large-scale corruption cases involve using legal entities to conceal ownership and control of corrupt proceeds, and policymakers should take steps to improve transparency to reduce opportunities for wrongdoing, according to a study released today by the Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative of the World Bank and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
The report, The Puppet Masters: How the Corrupt Use Legal Structures to Hide Stolen Assets and What to Do About It, examines how bribes, embezzled state assets and other criminal proceeds are being hidden via legal structures – shell companies, foundations, trusts and others. The study also provides policy makers with practical recommendations on how to step up ongoing international efforts to uncover flows of criminal funds and prevent criminals from misusing shell companies and other legal entities.
The FACT Coalition released a document detailing their legislative asks yesterday. The document does a great job of detailing important ways to keep the financial system accountable, both in a domestic and international sense. The entire document can be downloaded below the ‘read more’ or at the ‘PDF’ link in the post title.
Kazakhstan should complete the reform of its criminal legislation in order to comply with international standards and strengthen integrity in the public administration, according to a new report by the Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan (IAP). The report commends Kazakh leaders for declaring that the fight against corruption is a top priority and for ratifying the UN Convention [...]
Armenia should step up its fight against corruption by ensuring an effective enforcement of laws and giving institutions the resources they need to tackle it, according to a new report by the Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan (IAP). Armenia’s leaders have recently taken steps to improve their country’s anti-corruption policies, legislation and institutions. However citizens and business still consider [...]
Korea has improved its information and intelligence gathering capacity in foreign bribery cases, but should be more proactive in investigating allegations, according to a new OECD report.
Mexico has improved, but needs to give greater priority to the criminal enforcement of bribery and ensure that its criminal law enforcement authorities have all the resources and expertise they need to seriously investigate all allegations, according to a new OECD report.
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