The Task Force on Financial Integrity & Economic Development’s annual conference in Paris last week showed how taxpayers could benefit from a more transparent reporting standard, but activists admitted they must do more to engage companies in the debate.
LONDON – In a sign of growing anxiety about tax competition that costs governments billions of dollars a year, international economic policymakers are exploring the need for a global crackdown on tax loopholes.
WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and several other senators have introduced a bill to close offshore tax loopholes and strengthen offshore tax enforcement.
LONDON — Over the past fortnight, Vodafone stores across Britain have been blockaded by protesters wielding banners with the slogan “tax dodgers”. Orchestrated with the help of social media, the campaigners focused on a comparison between swingeing welfare cuts in the UK and what they claimed was Vodafone’s £6bn unpaid corporate tax bill – in spite of the figure being dismissed as an “urban myth” by HM Revenue & Customs. “If the rich paid their tax, you wouldn’t need to make a single cut to any essential service,” read one placard.
THE ECONOMIST—CONGRESSMEN working late into the summer nights to overhaul America’s system of financial regulation were surprised when Bono started lobbying them. Yet the rocker-cum-campaigner helped to insert a far-reaching change into the legislation they were drafting. It has nothing directly to do with America’s financial mess, but it will push forward the fight against corruption in the developing world, a cause which has made some much-needed progress recently.
The Guardian — Large companies should reveal how much of their profits they pay in tax to developing nations to show they comply with local corporation tax regimes, Stephen Timms, the Treasury minister, will say tomorrow as part of a three-pronged effort to boost tax revenues in poor countries.
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.
PARIS, Sep 16 (IPS) – Illegal capital flight in the form of corrupt, criminal and illicit commercial proceeds out of developing economies could be as high as one trillion dollars a year.
The emphasis on tax transparency at the April G20 meeting in London has not dissipated; rather, it has strengthened. Governments increasingly seem determined to implement serious change. Agendas have broadened from a strict focus on tax haven secrecy to measures in the area of corporate profit-shifting.
British charities have welcomed moves announced by the Government which could herald major improvements in the way tax is regulated internationally.
Finance ministers meet (sic) in Berlin on Tuesday 23rd June to review the international crackdown on tax havens. The meeting was organised by the French and German finance ministries and was also attended by Hans-Rudolf Merz, Swiss finance minister. Interestingly, this meeting has been the occasion for the UK to announce its support for Country by Country reporting in order to fight aggressive tax avoidance, informs recent article in the Financial Times.
Stephen Timms, financial secretary to the UK Treasury, will push this week for a move towards “country-by-country” financial reporting for multinationals.
While over 100 million children never get the opportunity to go to school, developing countries ...
GFI and Task Force Director Raymond Baker speaks in Norway in an event sponsored by ...
Global Financial Integrity Director Raymond Baker gives a lecture on the issue of illicit financial ...
Developing countries are currently losing US$1 trillion dollars annually - 10 times the amount they ...
Standing at the pump, watching the numbers tick away, do you ever wonder where the ...
Ugland House, the infamous Cayman Island building where 18,000 companies are "located", was in the ...
May 14, 2009
The government has published “UK international financial services – the future: A report from UK ...
May 13, 2009
Global Financial Integrity (GFI) Director Raymond Baker will testify before the U.S. House of Representatives ...
May 15, 2009
The US Senate Finance Committee just announced that it will be holding hearings on the ...
May 15, 2009
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