Financial Transparency Coalition

Task Force Director Raymond Baker spoke to MBA students at Georgia Tech (his alma mater) earlier this month, as part of their IMPACT speaker series. Previous speakers have included such prestigious names as Warren Buffett and Vice President Al Gore. He begins by explaining how illicit financial flows hurt the developing world, as well as the scope and scale of the problem. Raymond then asks the future business leaders in the audience to think about global inequality and their role in the world. He contrasts the humanizing philosophy of Adam Smith with the hard utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham.

Latindadd and other civil society organisations recently sent their contributions to the UK parliamentary inquiry into tax in developing countries. In its call, the International Development Committee of the UK parliament highlighted that “developing countries lose an estimated $ 160 billion each year through tax avoidance by multinational companies (including those based in the UK)” and the important role of the extractive industries, “where payments to governments are often not disclosed and may not contribute to development or poverty reduction.”

WASHINGTON, DC – Global Financial Integrity (GFI) welcomed an initiative by the OECD’s first Global Forum on Transfer Pricing today to simplify and strengthen international transfer pricing standards, but noted the need to engage a wide variety of developing countries as the Global Forum moves forward with its work.