Financial Transparency Coalition

For the last few years, the G20 has been writing the script on financial transparency. Just last year, at the 2015 Summit in Turkey, G20 leaders signed off on two important measures being implemented by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to cut down on cross-border tax abuse and multinational profit shifting. But

G20 governments including the US and China have failed to deliver on their promise to fight corruption by adopting laws to end the secrecy that makes it easy for the corrupt to hide their identity and shift money across international borders. As much as $2 trillion is laundered each year, much of it by hiding

This blog post is the first in a two-part blog series. In this post, I observe several of the year’s biggest global trends and their relationship to financial transparency. In the second post, I will examine this year’s progress and momentum in global policy on transparency issues. Rising Income Inequality In the United States, policymakers across the political spectrum have become increasingly vocal about the rising income inequality. They include Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who called this the “issue of our time,” Senator Paul Rand (R- KY) who admitted income inequality is a problem, and Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and...

This week several analysts reported that the European Union is considering regulating and taxing the digital currency, Bitcoin. Specifically, the EU is looking to impose a Value Added Tax (VAT) on trades in bitcoin. Meanwhile, its plans to regulate the digital currency—whether imminent or not—are still unclear. Bitcoin presents short- and long-term risks to financial crime. Like tax havens and other jurisdictions with lax laws on beneficial ownership, Bitcoin presents criminals with an opportunity to keep their money and their transactions secret. Specifically, Bitcoin users don’t need to present an ID to receive a Bitcoin address—or key—so...