Financial Transparency Coalition

Members of the European Parliament have proposed to strengthen Europe's Anti-Money Laundering Directive by requiring public registries of the real owners of all companies registered in the EU. They're voting on the Directive on January 22! A new FTC factsheet "How Europe can set the standard on anti-money laundering" tells you all you need to know about the Anti-Money Laundering Directive, including: •Why it matters •The modus operandi of money launderers •The revision of Europe’s anti-money laundering rules: a not-to-miss opportunity The Financial Transparency Coalition's network of over 150 civil society organizations and 12 governments around the world will be watching as the European...

Join the live chat, hosted by Thomson Reuters Foundation: Hashtag is #kenyadirtymoney Online debate on Wednesday, December 18, 2013, 1400 GMT http://www.trust.org/spotlight/Kenya-illicit-finance/?tab=live-event Illicit finance flowing into Kenya has jumped five fold in a decade. Kenya is the easiest place in the world to open a shell company. Global financial regulators tag Kenya as a high risk place for money laundering and terrorist finance, and the World Bank is studying the problem for regional anti-corruption agencies. Yet the government is pushing ahead with plans to turn Nairobi into an international financial centre. Is it building instead a major haven for laundering...

Following an intense stream of tax haven scandals last spring, the EU leaders met in May this year and promised to tackle the issue of tax dodging. This week, they meet again to discuss progress made. Eurodad - along with our partners across Europe - are calling for EU leaders to start taking the problem seriously. Our report “Giving with one hand and taking with the other – Europe’s role in tax-related capital flight from developing countries 2013” finds that European member states are missing important opportunities to increase transparency and public accountability. While a huge amount of...

What is "fair"? There are lots of different ways to see it. According to the Americans for Tax Fairness tax fairness means making corporations and wealthy individuals “pay their fair share.” For those at CATO, tax fairness is an Alternative Minimum Tax (or flat tax). Ultimately, though, tax fairness is a normative concept. It’s helpful, then, to consider what society as a whole considers fair. People’s opinions about this question matters, not only in a theoretical sense, but also because we want to maximize society’s happiness overall. To accomplish this, we need a tax system that aligns with society’s preferences. While people do...