Financial Transparency Coalition

After decades of sanctions and years of negotiations, the permanent members of the UN Security Council (and Germany) have reached a temporary deal on Iran’s nuclear program. Under the agreement, for the next six months, Iran will halt activities that would enable it to make a nuclear weapon and allow international inspectors to dramatically increase their oversight of the program. In exchange, the United Nations and the United States will ease international economic and financial sanctions (including by unfreezing billions in Iranian assets abroad). Not everyone is happy with the deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it an “historic...

In his riveting article "Push against offshore secrecy an uphill battle", the Center for Public Integrity’s Michael Hudson provides fascinating background about the evolution of tax havens, including this bit of US history: In 1921, the U.S. Congress raised questions about foreign subsidiaries that were used to “milk” their U.S. parent corporations, helping them cut tax bills. In 1937, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau warned President Franklin D. Roosevelt that Americans were dodging taxes by setting up holding companies in the Bahamas, Newfoundland and elsewhere, resorting to “all manner of devices to prevent the acquisition of information regarding their companies.” Hudson...

Some of the world’s most infamous secrecy jurisdictions, such as the British Virgin Islands and Jersey are considering becoming more transparent, whereas several G8 countries lag behind, said campaigners today. A new report, published by Global Witness and Christian Aid today on the eve of a meeting between the UK government and the heads of the Overseas Territories, grades each of the G8 countries and the UK’s tax havens as to how easy it is to find out the names of the ‘beneficial owners’ of companies – the people who ultimately own and control them. “Tax dodgers, child...

The budget conference committee, which is currently charged with negotiating a compromise on the U.S. federal budget, has met publicly for a second time last week. The committee must deliver a report to Congress by December 15 and, to avert another shutdown, Congress must extend government funding by January 15. Leaders in the budget committee leaders have said they “won’t waste time debating the areas where they already know there’s no agreement, but will focus on where deals can be cut.” Some Senate Democrats believe those compromises could lie in tax expenditures—including by eliminating “egregious” loopholes that wealthy individuals and...