Financial Transparency Coalition

I read with interest the following from a Treasury Department release today:

"As part of the Obama Administration's aggressive efforts to enforce U.S. tax laws and reduce offshore tax evasion, the U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced the conclusion of negotiations with Switzerland to amend the U.S.-Switzerland income tax treaty to provide for increased tax information exchange. Official signing of the protocol is expected in the next few months."

The Swiss have finally agreed to do what they should have done years ago. As weak as that is.

The Guardian newspaper is running a story today that says the UK government will push G20 ministers (who meet in Berlin next week) to adopt a new standard of financial reporting by multinational corporations.   Under the plan, called “country-by-country reporting,” multinationals will be required to report income and tax paid in every jurisdiction where they

George Orwell’s futuristic novel about the dangers of totalitarianism and loss of personal freedom, Nineteen Eighty-Four, is also known for its additions to the English lexicon.  “Big Brother” and “newspeak” are probably the most recognizable with newspeak meaning the use of language to obscure what was actually taking place.  For instance, in the novel “minitrue”

A Reuters piece on June 8 reported that many American clients of disgraced Swiss bank UBS are negotiating with the IRS to voluntarally disclose their holdings in order to avoid prosecution on tax evasion charges.  The article noted that a Tampa-based attorney representing some of those clients said, as Reuters put,  “a significant number .