Financial Transparency Coalition

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The G20’s recent focus on financial transparency is a welcome development, but instituting bare minimum requirements, or plans that allow for exclusion, simply give illicit flows an opportunity to continue their hazardous drain on the world’s most vulnerable economies. Last Tuesday, the OECD released recommendations on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), which are aimed at cutting down on the ability of corporations to shift profits into tax havens. It’s well intentioned, but the execution leaves much to be desired. “Apparently, transparency now takes place behind closed doors,” said Porter McConnell, Manager of the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC). “From a...

In an opinion piece that ran in the Sydney Morning Herald, Alvin Mosioma of the Tax Justice Network - Africa, Subrat Das of the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability, and Oriana Suarez of the Latin American Network on Debt, Development, and Rights called on the G20 Finance Ministers to act on a number of vital financial transparency issues. The ministers will meet this weekend in Australia, ahead of November's Leaders Summit. The article focused on the need to address all aspects of financial transparency, including beneficial ownership, automatic information exchange, and public country-by-country reporting.

Australia has long been an international leader on financial transparency issues, whether we're talking about taxes, beneficial ownership academic research, or money laundering laws. They aren't perfect, but it looks like the Australian Parliament will support an important new provision to make their tax system a whole lot more transparent:

SINGAPORE (Dow Jones) Singapore and Australia have amended their tax agreement to "enhance" cooperation on the exchange?of?information, Singapore's finance ministry said Tuesday.