Financial Transparency Coalition

A scandal over the government's allotment of telecom spectrum threatens to tarnish the reputation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has been publicly taken to task by India's Supreme Court for waiting 16 months to respond to a request for a probe into the matter.

The Tax Justice Network has a new section on its website, entitled Offshore History. Currently, it contains just a few links pointing to documents that cover important elements in the growth of tax havens, or secrecy jurisdictions. Over time, more details will be added. Comments and suggestions for further material would be most welcome.

Post independence, India lost a staggering $462 billion in illicit financial flows due to tax evasion, crime and corruption, a research and advocacy group said in a report today.

G20 leaders meeting in Seoul last week issued a lengthy communiqué accompanied by an annex fleshing out the “Seoul development consensus for shared growth.” The recognition that “there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ formula for development success and that developing countries must take the lead in designing and implementing development strategies” is a welcome one. However, the G20 call for “inclusive and sustainable growth” fails to provide concrete measures to ensure that poor people in poor countries reap the benefits of economic growth. The text fails to provide a specific plan to combat tax evasion by multinational companies and to...