Financial Transparency Coalition

Our very best wishes to you and your families during this holiday season!

Column: Swiss tax refuge vanishes Financial Post, December 22, 2010

ATO bid for ANZ tax haven accounts The Australian, December 24, 2010

Ex-Banker for UBS Pleads Guilty in Tax Case New York Times, December 23, 2010

Belgium Clarifies Ambiguous Tax Law Taxation News & Information, December 23, 2010

Greece approves 2011 austerity budget Financial Times, December 23, 2010

Global Witness: UK Aiding Corruption in Nigeria ThisDay (Nigeria), December 22, 2010

Cable: Belarus leader tied to crime Al Jazeera, December 23, 2010

Wealth of the nation is a private matter Financial...

It seems right to juxtapose two articles in the FT over the last couple of days. First this:

Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, already under fire over a multibillion-dollar telecoms corruption scandal, suddenly has a more down-to-earth problem on his plate – the skyrocketing price of onions. Their price at India’s retail vegetable markets has doubled from Rs35 ($0.78) per kg to Rs80 in the past few days, angering consumers already feeling the pinch from a year of food price inflation and rising fuel prices.

And secondly this:

The Financial Times is running an editorial today entitled a taxing world which is mostly very good. First, though, after a brief exploration of the UK Uncut phenomenon ("the group has a point") there is something we’d disagree with. The FT says this:

Tax avoidance is legal and legitimate. Unlike tax evasion, it is not obviously immoral to exploit the tax code to pay the least that is legally required.

It is up to government to plug the leaks, the FT said. No. For starters, as we constantly argue, what is legal is not necessarily what...