Financial Transparency Coalition

In today's issue, the Economist published a fantastic 14-page special report on the shadow financial system and the crime, corruption, and tax dodging that it facilitates. The report included numerous citations of Task Force members Tax Justice Network and Global Financial Integrity, as well as strong arguments in favor of Task Force recommendations for automatic exchange of tax information and the elimination of anonymous shell companies.

Late last week, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) introduced the Corporate Tax Fairness Act. Right now, corporations based in the United States are allowed to defer taxes on any overseas earnings indefinitely. In practice, this leads to two things: tremendous amounts of profit shifting via abusive transfer pricing to tax havens, and large deposits of untaxed cash sitting in bank accounts located in those same tax havens. If enacted, this law would end deferral, requiring that all U.S. corporate profit would be taxed for the year that it was earned.

Australia has long been an international leader on financial transparency issues, whether we're talking about taxes, beneficial ownership academic research, or money laundering laws. They aren't perfect, but it looks like the Australian Parliament will support an important new provision to make their tax system a whole lot more transparent:

Task Force member Global Financial Integrity will be holding a panel discussion about the new book, Global Corruption: Money, Power and Ethics in the Modern World, by Transparency International's Laurence Cockcroft. All are invited to attend. If you are outside the Washington, DC area, the event will be filmed and posted online shortly afterwards.