Financial Transparency Coalition

In the United States, the overall noncompliance rate for all federal taxes and individual income taxes stands at about 14 percent. According to studies by the Taxpayer Compliance Research Program and the National Research Program, about 1 percent of wages and salaries are underreported and about 4 percent of taxable interest and dividends are misreported. A study of Germany found that the corporate tax base would have increased by 14% if no income-shifting had occurred. Developing countries lose about $900 billion in illicit outflows per year, which severely undermines these nations' abilities to effectively raise revenue. These activities are...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The G20’s recent focus on financial transparency is a welcome development, but instituting bare minimum requirements, or plans that allow for exclusion, simply give illicit flows an opportunity to continue their hazardous drain on the world’s most vulnerable economies. Last Tuesday, the OECD released recommendations on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), which are aimed at cutting down on the ability of corporations to shift profits into tax havens. It’s well intentioned, but the execution leaves much to be desired. “Apparently, transparency now takes place behind closed doors,” said Porter McConnell, Manager of the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC). “From a...

In an opinion piece that ran in the Sydney Morning Herald, Alvin Mosioma of the Tax Justice Network - Africa, Subrat Das of the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability, and Oriana Suarez of the Latin American Network on Debt, Development, and Rights called on the G20 Finance Ministers to act on a number of vital financial transparency issues. The ministers will meet this weekend in Australia, ahead of November's Leaders Summit. The article focused on the need to address all aspects of financial transparency, including beneficial ownership, automatic information exchange, and public country-by-country reporting.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) new recommendations to fight multinational corporate tax avoidance look robust from the onset, but there’s something missing. Since the most vital reporting information will remain out of the reach of ordinary citizens, the recommendations don’t do enough to bring transparency to a global financial system badly in need of it. The OECD’s project on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) is intended to crack down on the ability of corporations to move profits overseas, through mis-invoicing trade transactions to avoid taxes and other dubious practices. With nearly a trillion...