February 16th, 2012
The Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development, of which Tax Research UK is a member, has welcomed new moves to tackle tax dodging announced by the global body charged with fighting financial crime.
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February 15th, 2012
Last night, the University of Edinburgh Students Union became the first union in the UK to ban all SABMiller beers, including Grolsch and Peroni, from union outlets.
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February 15th, 2012
In July of last year President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act–also known as the “financial overhaul bill”—into law. Embedded into the Dodd-Frank Act was Section 1504, which required companies listed on the U.S. stock exchange to disclose payments to governments for oil, gas, and mining. Under these provisions, companies would provide this information in their SEC filings and it would be publicly available.
Unsurprisingly, the American Petroleum Industry (API), a U.S. trade association for the oil and gas industry, is pushing back. In a letter to the SEC, API claims Section 1504 defies Executive...
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February 14th, 2012
In the first Star Wars movie, Luke Skywalker and friends somehow blew up the Death Star. That’s a bit how we felt in 2010 when after years of fighting we got a new global financial transparency requirement into the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. The provision requires oil, gas, and mining companies to disclose tax and other payments in every country of operation. As I’ve been writing about in the last two weeks, we now feel like we are in The Empire Strikes Back. The oil industry has threatened to sue the SEC if they don’t get a regulation...
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