Financial Transparency Coalition

Jack Blum, chairman of the Task Force's Tax Justice Network-USA, recently sat down with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! to talk about an array of tax justice issues. Mr. Blum has decades of experience on tax issues, both on the legal side as an attorney and the legislative side as an investigator for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism, and International Operations. He mentions a new documentary he was involved with, We're Not Broke, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

The U.S. government frequently raises the issue of smuggling of bulk shipments of currency from the U.S. to Mexico as a major economic and security issue, one that demands greater effort by Mexican authorities to detect and deter. However, as a report released this week by Global Financial Integrity reveals, bulk cash smuggling is not the only form of illicit financial transfer taking place in staggering volumes across the U.S. - Mexico border.

IPPR produced a report on globalisation last week. With a forward by Lord Mandelson the report was written by Will Straw and Alex Glennie. I admit I don’t agree with either Mandelson or Straw; they have a political perspective I don’t always share but this report has merit to it, as others have also noted since its publication. It represents a clear change of heart on Peter Mandelson’s part, and that I welcome.

After 6 years with the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad), first as Policy Officer and then as Director, Nuria Molina left the organisation at the end of January, 2012. We took the opportunity to ask her a couple of questions about life, taxes, working for NGOs and the role of women as makers of change.