Task Force Blog

Issues in the News

Tax haven risks corruption, OECD warns Ghana

January 19, 2010

The Guardian — West African state’s emergence as oil producer and offshore centre may fuel crime, says thinktank

VA Resident Charged with Conspiring to Bribe Ex-Panama Gov. Officials for Maritime Contract

December 16, 2009

A federal grand jury has charged a Virginia Beach, Va., resident with conspiracy to pay bribes to former Panamanian government officials to secure maritime contracts.

Tax deadline extended for offshore savings

November 30, 2009

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has given extra time for people to confess to dodging tax through offshore accounts.

Swiss should treat India on par with US, France on DTAAs: OECD director

November 30, 2009

PARIS: India’s efforts to track black money stashed abroad have borne little fruit but a top official of the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD), a 30-member grouping of mainly developed economies, said there is no reason why India should not be treated on par with the United States or France by Switzerland on negotiations around the double tax avoidance agreements (DTAA).

Ex-GM of Texas Business Arrested for Role in Mexican Bribery Scheme

November 23, 2009

WASHINGTON – The former general manager of a Sugar Land, Texas-based business was arrested on Nov. 18, 2009, for his alleged role in a conspiracy to bribe Mexican government officials to secure contracts with the Comisión Federal de Electridad (CFE), a Mexican state-owned utility company, announced Lanny A. Breuer, Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division; Richard C. Powers, Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI’s Houston Field Office; and Rodney E. Clarke, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation’s (IRS-CI) Houston Field Office. In addition, a Mexican citizen has pleaded guilty for his role in the bribery scheme.

Screws turn on tax havens

November 23, 2009

Australia and other developed nations are tired of seeing their tax dollars heading overseas and out of reach, writes Ruth Williams and Ian McIlwraith.

Swiss get tough on corruption

November 23, 2009

Action by a Swiss judge to order the confiscation of bank accounts held in countries outside Switzerland set a legal precedent that will help in the international fight against corruption, legal experts said.

Illicit Money: Can It Be Stopped?

November 16, 2009

On May 4, the Obama administration announced a plan to crack down on offshore tax havens, which it said are costing the United States tens of billions of dollars each year. The President’s proposals were primarily aimed at finding ways to increase revenue from wealthy companies and investors who use loopholes in the law and offshore subsidiaries to reduce their US taxes. But the administration is largely missing a far more devastating problem related to offshore finance: money gained from criminal and other illicit sources. With the use of tax havens and other elements of an increasingly complex “shadow” financial network, vast sums of illegal money are being shifted throughout the global economy virtually undetected.

Editorial: Dodging the graft

November 9, 2009

With financial sector losses being counted in the trillions, it is easy to lose sight of the mere hundreds of billions slushing down the drain of corruption every year. So negotiators meeting in Doha to discuss the six-year-old United Nations Convention against Corruption must make sure the momentum gained by the anti-corruption fight over the past two decades does not become a casualty of the crisis.

Tax dodgers are targeted online

November 2, 2009

The taxman has taken to social networking for the first time to warn people to come clean about offshore bank accounts.

Foreign Tax Cheats Find U.S. Banks a Safe Haven

October 30, 2009

Washington has spent much of this year showing how tough it is on tax cheats. The Justice Department triumphantly declared in August that it had reached a settlement with Swiss banking giant UBS for it to turn over the names of approximately 4,450 American account holders suspected by the IRS of evading taxes. This week, the IRS revealed the formation of a special task force to go after wealthy tax dodgers, and members of Congress introduced a bill to force foreign firms doing business in the U.S. to disclose all its U.S. clients with accounts overseas.

U.K. Treasury Report: Offshore Centers Must Up Regulation Standards

October 29, 2009

LONDON — The U.K.’s myriad overseas territories and crown dependencies must improve standards on financial regulation and tax information-sharing and should broaden their tax base or face possible consequences, a U.K. treasury commissioned report said Thursday.

Tax havens ‘cannot rely on UK bail-out’

October 29, 2009

The future of Britain’s tax havens is in question after a Government report raised doubts over Britain’s willingness to act as a lender of last resort in future unless they raise taxes and impose new regulations on their businesses.

New threat for UK’s offshore havens: tax

October 29, 2009

Britain’s tax havens will be read the last rites tomorrow when a Treasury commissioned report will tell them to raise new taxes if they are to survive the economic crisis.

UBS ex-client avoids prison for tax conviction

October 29, 2009

MIAMI — A wealthy accountant who provided extensive help in the tax evasion probe of Swiss bank UBS AG was sentenced to a year of house arrest Wednesday after admitting he concealed about $6 million in assets from the IRS.

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