Financial Transparency Coalition

On 9 December 2010, the European Parliament’s Committee on Development will vote on the Draft Report on Tax and Development led by Member of the European Parliament Eva Joly. The report aims to present the European Parliament’s views on the initiatives set forth by the European Commission in the Communication on Cooperation with Developing Countries on Promoting Good Governance in Tax Matters. This report is good news for civil society organisations such as Eurodad that are advocating to effectively clamp down on tax havens and stop more than USD 600 billion of tax-related illicit flows bleeding the...

Although both countries’ central banks cited domestic pressures on inflation as the main reason for the rises, the Reserve Bank of India also drew attention to fears that a new round of quantitative easing in the US and elsewhere could flood emerging markets with fresh capital inflows, putting further pressure on rising asset prices.

Recently I wrote a post on illegal logging—a type of illicit financial flow—and the practice’s adverse effects on development. I noted that as with other, more widely understood, types of illicit financial flows, illegal trans-boundary logging can undermine political legitimacy, rob developing countries of tax revenue, and exacerbate conflicts. Moreover this practice can rob developing countries of a resource that—unlike drugs and minerals—has value even as it remains stationary, as 1.2 billion people depend on forests for wood, fuel, fodder and food. One reason deforestation and loss of biodiversity are such alarming problems is that the full costs...

David McNair of Christian Aid has an article on Comment is Free at the Guardian this morning. Talking about the proposed tax agreement with Switzerland he says:

The government might call it pragmatism but its talks with Switzerland, about how to tackle the £100bn or so which Britons have hidden in Swiss bank accounts, suggest that it is suffering from both naivety and a severe case of beggar-thy-neighbour. What the two governments have said is that they will try to do a deal to give the UK some of the tax that its...