Financial Transparency Coalition

The Taxcast looks at privatisation and tax: what happens when public assets or services get into private hands? Also: Google’s challenged on its tax affairs by its own shareholders; will Congress block the US administration’s decision to agree to the G20′s global transparency standard? And whatever happened to the UK government’s ‘leadership’ on public registers of the real owners of companies now it turns out it’ll ‘encourage’ but not ‘force’ its overseas territories & Crown dependencies to sign up to the initiative?

Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington-based NGO and Coordinating Committee member of the FTC, has released a new report highlighting the drain that illicit financial flows have on countries in the developing world. But rather than look at the entire developing world, the report focused on five specific countries in east Africa: Uganda, Ghana, Mozambique, Kenya, and Tanzania. The report investigates trade mis-invoicing—the act of under or over-valuing goods so that a business can move money into our out of a country undetected—and estimates how much tax revenue these five countries...

Britain’s credibility as a global leader in the fight to end corruption is under real threat.  Its fate lies in the hands of the Governor of a sunny, palm-fringed Caribbean island who was appointed by the UK itself. Last year, as chair of the G8, the UK committed to creating public registries of the real owners of companies. This was a hugely important move by the UK and one we support wholeheartedly. With global support, such a measure could put a stop to some of the worst problems of our time;...

The Africa Progress Panel, a group headed by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, launched the 2014 report "Grain, Fish, Money" today at an event in London. The report touches on everything from income inequality to illegal fishing activities that are quickly depleting Africa's oceans and gulfs. But no matter what topic was being discussed, a broader theme kept resurfacing: financial transparency.