Financial Transparency Coalition

If there is a one sentence argument that we forward here at the Task Force, it is this: financial opacity, of all kinds, is a root cause of global poverty. Media reports sometimes fail to make this connection and sometimes tinker around the edges of it, but rarely make the link as directly as Hakima Abbas' excellent op-ed for Al-Jazeera.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) secured a big step towards the financial transparency needed to combat tax dodging last week when they made EU Finance Ministers agree on country-by-country reporting for EU banks from 2014. This represents a major victory after years of campaigning by Eurodad members and allies. The deal under the EU’s Capital Requirement Directive is timely and it can – and should – influence the final agreement on the Accounting Directive, where country-by-country reporting is still on the table.

. . . or at least that's what seems to be suggested in an article entitled "Top executives join France exodus." It focuses quite heavily (though not exclusively) on tax. "Exodus" is a pretty big word. Now let's see. What does the article actually say?

Yesterday, the nation’s top intelligence official, James R. Clapper Jr., briefed Congress on the most important security threats facing our nation. Clapper didn’t bother to hide his disdain for the annual event, calling an open hearing on intelligence matters a “contradiction in terms.” In a more subtle critique, Clapper also noted that it is virtually impossible to “rank—in terms of long-term importance—the numerous, potential threats to U.S. national security.” In that vein, Clapper said it is the “multiplicity and interconnectedness of potential threats—and the actors behind them—that constitute our biggest challenge.” On that critique, I couldn’t agree more. One of...