Financial Transparency Coalition

After QE2, QT2? Quantitative tightening – or measures by emerging market countries to counter the sometimes pernicious effects of capital inflows – began even before it became clear that the Federal Reserve was preparing another massive bout of quantitative easing.

Twenty besuited men and women shuffle and blink around a large conference table at 9 am in the heart of the City of London, with almost panoramic views from their fourth floor room. To the unknowing eye this might seem like the start of yet another corporate board meeting. Yet these people hold power not only over the future of a company, but the lives of literally hundreds of millions of people living in poverty around the world. This is the International Accounting Standards Board’s (IASB) October meeting, and the first item on the agenda is its ‘extractive activities’ project....

From Kenya's Daily Nation:

Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) says it is investigating some multinationals for abusive transfer mispricing. Among them, according to Mr John Njiraini, the KRA commissioner of domestic taxes in charge of the large taxpayers, are the country's three largest flower companies. "We have seen cases of multinationals reporting losses in Kenyan subsidiaries while their parent firms are making huge profits. We are investigating whether they have abused their transfer pricing policies," Mr Njiraini, said.

The article, quoting TJN's Africa network, adds that there is a great problem with enforcing transfer pricing arrangements, and with the...

Mark Herkenrath of Alliance Sud in Switzerland has written a detailed briefing exploring the latest UK-Switzerland and UK-Germany tax deals, complementing Richard Murphy's recent writing on the subject. Herkenrath's article is prefaced as follows:

The UK and Germany have committed to negotiations with Switzerland on a final withholding tax. The planned tax would cement Swiss banking secrecy and undermine the EU's common struggle for international tax transparency. Civil society urgently needs to oppose the proposed agreements, as they are not yet set in stone - and to send a warning signal to other countries that may be considering a...