Financial Transparency Coalition

Globalization has provided citizens across the globe with unprecedented access to goods, services, capital and information - better, faster, and cheaper.  Greater efficiency in international financial markets has driven global economic development during the past 30 years.  Despite all the benefits derived from a more interconnected global community, the dark side of globalization simultaneously has empowered terrorism, crime, and corruption around the world.  While the Internet promotes connectivity and anonymity, protecting the identity of illicit actors, traditional investigative tools like “following the money trail” can help us better understand, detect, disrupt and dismantle these illicit networks.  Let us see...

This week the world saw a huge leap forward on automatic tax information exchange and, more broadly, the effort to crack down on tax evasion. As the recent investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has shown, governments around the world have a big problem, not only with tax evasion specifically, but also the broader use of offshore vehicles for hiding cash and corruption. Yet this week, the governments of ten European nations have answered this challenge in stunning fashion. Their efforts have ignited momentum on an effort that could be an integral part of not only reducing tax...

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) in India brought out a Manual on Exchange of Information in January 2013, including Automatic Exchange of Information. Although this Manual was released to provide guidance to Investigating Officers explaining various provisions and for making requests to countries, it is pertinent to note some of the discussion which is of relevance particularly for Automatic Exchange of Information.

Sarah Petre-Mears controls more than 1,200 companies across the Caribbean, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Supposedly. Actually Petre-Mears doesn’t know much about the companies for which she passes resolutions and helps set up bank accounts; all she needs to do is sign her name. Because Petre-Mears is actually just a nominee-director, who keep the real owners of her companies secret by selling their names for use on official company documents, whilst giving addresses in obscure places all over the world. Walk into Madrid’s famed art museum, Thyssen-Bornemiza, and you’ll find the private art collection of Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, which...