June 24th, 2009
As Richard Murphy has
noted on his blog, the Treasury Minister of the Isle of Man, Allan Bell, has signaled that the small British territory will move adopt a standard of
Automatic Exchange of Tax Information. According to the
Isle of Man Today:
At a Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Forum in Paris, Mr Bell will announce that the withholding tax for EU-residents with offshore bank accounts here will be scrapped from July 1, 2011 – and the automatic exchange of tax information introduced.
This is a great step for the...
June 23rd, 2009
Country-by-Country Reporting Noticeably Absent; Disclosure of Beneficial Ownership Endorsed
The finance ministers from 19 OECD nations released a "Summary of Conclusions" as the result of their meeting in Berlin today. While afirming previous committments - encouraging the use of "defensive measures" to be used against Tax havens, and calling for the disclosure of
beneficial ownership of all companies, foundations, and trusts - the statement stops far short of calling for
country-by-country reporting of profits by multinational corporations. Additionally, the countries remain committed to the OECD standard on information exchange - a standard which we...
June 22nd, 2009
This past week, Task Force members
Global Financial Integrity,
Global Witness, and
Tax Justice Network USA along with the Center for Corporate Policy, Citizens for Tax Justice, Friends Fiduciary Corporation, Government Accountability Project, MaryKnoll, New Rules for Global Finance, Oxfam America, and Public Citizen submitted a letter to the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (HSGAC) in support of the Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act (
S. 569).
The
letter states that the legislation:
...will help law enforcement stop the misuse of U.S. corporations for tax fraud, money...
June 22nd, 2009
Task Force member
Transparency International has released a new
report analyizing the anti-corruption practices of the world's leading companies. From the
release:
Leading, publicly listed companies around the world are far from demonstrating embedded anti-corruption practices in their operations, according to a report issued today by Transparency International (TI).
While companies may often report high-level, strategic commitments to prevent corruption, they do not always provide meaningful details on the support systems required to meet such aims, TI found. The actual effectiveness of anti-bribery systems is distinct from mere reporting...
