09/11/2009
Tax havens and major financial centres exploit poor countries
Riochard Murphy observes that in a recent study, Global Witness, Tax Justice Network, Christian Aid and Global Financial Integrity explains how illicit financial flows out of the developing world is entrenching poverty. These flows include tax evasion, abusive transfer mispricing and the proceeds of corruption. All of these illicit financial flows are facilitated by global financial opacity, both in tax havens and major financial centres.
Unfortunately tax havens and major financial centres deny the issue, like Luxembourg. However the calculation is realistic enough despite secrecy to be aware that the issue exist whatever the accurate amounts.
17:45 Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (0)
2009 Annual Conference of the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development
The current global financial crisis marks a rare moment when the interests of developing and developed countries are closely aligned.
The2009 Annual Conference of the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development will take place next week in Washington, DC.
The conference will highlight how a common approach to greater financial transparency can benefit rich and poor nations alike.
Speakers will address country-by-country reporting of income and tax paid by multinational corporations, listing beneficial ownership of subsidiaries , automatic exchange of tax information between governments, curtailing trade mispricing, harmonizing predicate crimes for money laundering charges among FATF countries, and other issues of transparency that continue to hamper development in poor nations. Among the list of leading experts slated to speak are U.S. Senator Carl Levin and scholars Dr. Francis Fukuyama and Dr. Paul Collier
The agenda sounds particularly relevant:
Panel 1 - Transfer Pricing
Alex Cobham, Christian Aid, Chair
Jack Blum, Chairman, Tax Justice Network
Krishen Mehta, Director, Asia Initiatives
Raymond Baker, Director, Global Financial Integrity, Center for International Policy
Horizons 1 – Magnitudes and Directions
James Boyce, Director, Program on Development, Peacebuilding, and the Environment,
Political Economy Research Institute, & Professor, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Chair
Dev Kar, Lead Economist, Global Financial Integrity, Center for International Policy
Keynote – The Honorable John Kerry, United States Senator
Panel 2 – Automatic Exchange
John Christensen, Director, Tax Justice Network, Chair
David Spencer, Tax Justice Network
Martin Sullivan, Tax Analysts
Jonathan Winer, Senior Vice President, APCO Worldwide Inc
Horizons 2 – Norwegian Panel of Economists
Harald Tollan, Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation, Chair
Dr. Odd-Helge Fjeldstad, Research Director, Public Sector Reform, Chr. Michelsen Institute
Fridtjov Thorkildsen, Director, Governance and Anti-Corruption Unit, Norad
Panel 3 – Country-by-Country Reporting
Gavin Hayman, Campaigns Director, Global Witness, Chair
Richard Murphy, Tax Research LLP
Horacio Peña, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
Keynote – The Honorable Carl Levin, United States Senator
Francis Fukuyama, Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political
Economy & Director, International Development Program, The Paul H. Nitze
School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Panel 4 – Beneficial Ownership
Charles Davidson, Publisher & CEO, The American Interest, Chair
Emery Kobor, Assistant Director, Strategic Policy Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, US Department of the Treasury
James McDonald, President, Rockefeller & Co., Inc.
Anthea Lawson, Global Witness
Horizons 3 – Asset Recovery
Lord Daniel Brennan, Counsel, Matrix Chambers, Chair
Adrian Fozzard, Coordinator, STAR Project, World Bank
Alan Bacarese, Basel Institute
Ken Hurwitz, Anticorruption Senior Legal Officer, Open Society Institute
Keynote – Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to the President & Senior Director for
Relief, Stabilization, and Reconstruction, National Security Council
Panel 5 – Predicate Offenses
François Valerian, Head of Private Sector Programs, Transparency International, Chair
Heather Lowe, Legal Counsel & Director of Government Affairs, Global Financial Integrity
Chip Poncy, Director, Office of Terrorist Financing & Financial Crimes, US Department of the Treasury
Nick Podsiadly, U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary
Horizons 4 – Economists’ Advisory Council
Paul Collier, Director, Centre for the Study of African Economies, & Professor of Economics, Oxford University Department of Economics, Chair
Seeraj Mohamed, Director, Corporate Strategy and Industrial Development Research
Programme (CSID), School of Economics and Business Sciences University of the
Witwatersrand
17:45 Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (0)
French lawmakers propose crackdown on tax havens
The AFP has reported that French lawmakers propose crackdown on tax havens .
They proposed 30 measures to crack down on tax havens and money laundering, including getting rid of 500-euro notes, as it is currently the largest denomination of a major currency in circulation, and that "laundering of dirty money very often resorts to cash.".
The report urges the government to compile its own list of countries uncooperative in cracking down on money laundering and then block branches of companies registered in such countries from operating in France.
The report also proposes "blocking access to French territorial waters for ships flying flags of convenience registered in tax havens."
The limit for transactions conducted should also be reduced to 3,000 euros between individuals and 1,100 euros for businesses, it said.
Lawmakers also call for the creation of a new financial crime investigation service.
08:30 Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (0)