Financial Transparency Coalition

After a decade of high growth in sub-Saharan Africa, it is time to ask: who benefits? Certainly growth has been accompanied by some poverty reduction and some progress in health and education. But advances are inadequate compared to the wealth created. Worse still, income inequality is rising in too many countries. A new report by Tax Justice Network-Africa and Christian Aid investigates income inequality in eight sub-Saharan African countries and asks whether their tax systems are working to narrow the gap between rich and poor.

International aid organization, Oxfam, released a new report last Thursday claiming there are a number of flaws with the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development's (OECD) plan to implement global tax reforms. The project, known as the Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), attempts to address profit shifting, a process in which corporations move profits to subsidiaries in low-tax jurisdictions to avoid paying taxes where the profits were actually generated. Often, the countries in which the real profits were made are developing countries with higher corporate...

The Civil Society 20 (C20) has released draft position papers ahead of their summit in June, and, once again, they are looking for your input. The global network of civil society organizations solicited public comments in an online conversation earlier this year, and incorporated the feedback into the position papers. These documents will guide the group's campaigning and conversations with policymakers involved in the G20 summit taking place in Brisbane, Australia later this year.

While places like the Cayman Islands, Jersey, and the British Virgin Islands have begun entertaining the idea of public registers of beneficial ownership, today, they might have received the biggest nudge yet to move in that direction. But rather than come from civil society or advocacy groups, this time, the nudge comes all the way from 10 Downing Street.