Financial Transparency Coalition

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is moving towards implementing a new tool for catching tax evaders: automatic exchange of financial information (AEOI). While the name might sound a bit confusing, the idea is pretty simple. Governments in the system will share financial information with each other at designated intervals, enabling authorities to find individuals and corporations that are stashing assets in foreign countries to evade taxes. While it’s a welcome initiative, we have serious concerns about the OECD's efforts thus far to include developing countries. Developing countries are some of the hardest hit by tax evasion and...

A new report out from the McKinsey Global Institute claims that Nigeria could be the next hotspot for economic growth and development. The firm says that, by 2030, the west African nation could become one of the world's leading economies. And it's true; Nigeria has seen an economic surge in recent years, thanks to massive oil exploitation, a burgeoning financial sector, and a huge population. In April, Nigeria even leapfrogged South Africa on its way to becoming Africa's biggest economy. But even with annual GDP growth at 7%, millions of Nigerians suffer...

The Tax Justice Network an FTC member, just released the July installment of TaxCast, a podcast featuring a detailed look at the previous month's tax news. In the Tax Justice Network’s latest podcast: What really happened at the Google shareholder meeting vote on a proposal for ethical tax principles? Plus: we discuss what the new tax haven-friendly EU Commission President might do (or not do), anti-democratic moves in Hong Kong from the big four accountancy firms, and: forget the OECD’s global tax reform – developing countries can and are doing it...

Illicit financial flows affect countries all over the world. Unfortunately, developing countries seem to suffer the greatest due to illicit outflows. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, loses roughly 5.7% of its overall Gross Domestic Product every year to illicit flows, according to research from FTC member Global Financial Integrity. Along with advocating for strong policy changes, it’s important that a robust and informed press investigates cases of tax evasion, corruption, and harmful tax practices that rob governments of much needed revenue.