Financial Transparency Coalition

The Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development, in partnership with the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability, will host its first Asia regional conference, Financial Transparency: Challenges and Opportunities for Developing Countries, at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi on April 3, 2013

Late last week, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) introduced the Corporate Tax Fairness Act. Right now, corporations based in the United States are allowed to defer taxes on any overseas earnings indefinitely. In practice, this leads to two things: tremendous amounts of profit shifting via abusive transfer pricing to tax havens, and large deposits of untaxed cash sitting in bank accounts located in those same tax havens. If enacted, this law would end deferral, requiring that all U.S. corporate profit would be taxed for the year that it was earned.

Exactly a year ago, in the clinical hall which once housed an infamous women’s prison, South Africa’s Corruption Watch was born. The imposing space was packed to capacity with political heavyweights, anti-apartheid luminaries, journalists and human rights activists who had come to welcome the launch of the first civil society watchdog of its kind in the country.

On January 22nd, 2010, the day after the Supreme Court ruled on the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, Americans knew elections in our nation would never be the same. Although no one was really sure exactly how. In the landmark 5-4 decision, the court ruled that, under the First Amendment, the government could not restrict independent political expenditures from corporations, non-profits, and unions. In his dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens argued that allowing unlimited corporate money to flood the political marketplace would corrupt our democracy. We might not all agree with the contentious Citizens United decision, but it is...