Financial Transparency Coalition

The lux leaks saga moved up a couple of gears last week. First of all, a large number of MEPs broke ranks with their leadership to publicly back a European Parliament committee of enquiry into the so-called ‘sweetheart deals’ that Luxembourg concluded with hundreds of multinational companies to minimise their tax bill. The Parliament’s political decision-making body, the Conference of Presidents, has yet to formally approve the enquiry but the genie seems to be well and truly out of the bottle now, even if there are reports that EPP deputies are being put under pressure to withdraw their signatures.  The enquiry...

Is it inevitable that multinational companies pay pitifully small sums in tax relative to huge profits? Not necessarily because amid growing political and public outrage at how multinationals organise their tax affairs, a new report today suggests there could be an alternative.

In 1992 the U.S. Supreme Court made a decision that directly affected the profitability of future powerhouse online retailers like Amazon.com and Overstock.com. In Quill v. North Dakota, the Court ruled that retailers who have no physical presence (or “nexus”) in a state are exempt from collecting sales taxes in that state. Obviously internet shopping in 1992 wasn’t exactly what it is now. Actually the case dealt with a catalog mail-order company, but online retailers now use the rule to avoid sales taxes. Of course since e-commerce sales have soared and displaced business of local retailers, this has become am...