Financial Transparency Coalition

Following Dr. François Valérian’s excellent article about stolen assets and the financial system, it is timely to re-publish an article that we wrote in July 2009, which reinforces Valérian’s crucial point about the importance of identifying the warm-blooded human beings who are ultimately the beneficiaries of trusts. It involves a long explanation of trusts: where

From Kenya's Daily Nation:

Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) says it is investigating some multinationals for abusive transfer mispricing. Among them, according to Mr John Njiraini, the KRA commissioner of domestic taxes in charge of the large taxpayers, are the country's three largest flower companies. "We have seen cases of multinationals reporting losses in Kenyan subsidiaries while their parent firms are making huge profits. We are investigating whether they have abused their transfer pricing policies," Mr Njiraini, said.

The article, quoting TJN's Africa network, adds that there is a great problem with enforcing transfer pricing arrangements, and with the...

Mark Herkenrath of Alliance Sud in Switzerland has written a detailed briefing exploring the latest UK-Switzerland and UK-Germany tax deals, complementing Richard Murphy's recent writing on the subject. Herkenrath's article is prefaced as follows:

The UK and Germany have committed to negotiations with Switzerland on a final withholding tax. The planned tax would cement Swiss banking secrecy and undermine the EU's common struggle for international tax transparency. Civil society urgently needs to oppose the proposed agreements, as they are not yet set in stone - and to send a warning signal to other countries that may be considering a...

We have blogged a few times about the efforts of Barclays Bank to encourage and set up offshore banking in Ghana, amid a highly corrupted region in the throes of a gigantic oil boom. The prospects for this becoming a conduit for illicit leakage is tremendous. This next offering in the Harvard International Review takes the story further. Its first line goes like this:

We are bound by our confidentially agreement with our clients,' disclosed a Barclays official based in the Seychelles. 'No other branches can access our client details.'

Barclays again. Then the article continues: