Financial Transparency Coalition

AFRODAD (African Forum and Network on Debt and Development) has released two reports entitled “What has tax got to do with Development: A Critical look at Mozambique’s and Zimbabwe’s tax systems” The link between development and taxation has come up in various fora, as development practitioners and activists discussed methods of mobilizing domestic resources to finance development, and attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Tax revenues are, on average, lower in developing countries than in rich countries; the average tax revenue in African countries was approximately 15% of GDP in 2008. Hence the argument is that if developing countries...

The nine regional councils will ask for country by country reports from their banks and insurers. This will include the following details: Name and number of subsidiaries; numbers of staff employed; profits and amounts of taxes paid. This information should be provided by the company six months after its annual report is published. This information is invaluable in calculating whether a company is paying its fair share of tax in each country. The precedent this sets is very important as the EU is currently considering introducing country by county reporting. The Comite Catholique Contre La Faim et Pour Le...

An imminent “final withholding tax treaty”, will allow Germany to claw back some revenue from tax evasion, but it will also protect Swiss bank secrecy and undermine the prospect of automatic information exchange. Swiss and German negotiators will probably conclude the deal on 10^th August. The deal will then have to be approved through the respective national legislative processes, so there will be opportunities for civil society to mobilize opposition and generate debate about information exchange. A withholding tax will be charged on income from savings and investments of German citizens with Swiss accounts, i.e those who had previously evaded...

Recently The European Commission published a report entitled “Transfer pricing and developing countries,” which is meant to assist these countries with addressing the problem. Transfer pricing is the single biggest source of illicit financial flows in the world costing developing countries hundreds of billions of dollars every year. While an assessment of the impact of transfer pricing in developing countries is sorely needed the report was narrowly focussed on the implementation and interpretation of the arms length principle. The arm’s length principle, promoted by the OECD that has proven to be very difficult to implement globally...