Financial Transparency Coalition

The European Commission has launched a series of investigations into the tax structures of companies like Google, Apple and Amazon, for fear that they are siphoning off tax revenue from Europe. Far less attention has been paid to the role of institutions like the EU-backed European Investment Bank (EIB) in financing this offshore trade, particularly when it comes to developing countries. Could this change? 

The EU Savings Tax Directive (EUSTD) has been the EU’s flagship transparency initiative since its introduction in 2003, and we have written about it on many occasions. It complements another EU transparency scheme called the Directive on Administrative Co-operation, which was beefed up this week, as the Wall St. Journal reported:

“European Union finance ministers agreed Tuesday on a far-reaching crackdown on tax evasion that will bring the bloc’s standards on par with global rules by 2017, although Austria is getting an extra year to build up a data-exchange system with its banks.”

The DAC currently covers only EU Member states, while the EUSTD is extended by agreement...

In the process to revise Europe's 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD), European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to approve the creation of public registers of information on the real owners of companies, trusts, and other legal entities in the EU. Public registers of the beneficial owners (real owners), would help greatly in the fight against corruption, trafficking, tax evasion, and other types of illicit financial flows that are perpetrated with the help of anonymous companies with hidden ownership. However, the European Parliament's input is only one piece of the puzzle.

Cross posted from Transparency International’s Space for Transparency Blog. After a summer of corruption scandals in Spanish politics, the country’s Congress passed a new piece of legislation on transparency and access to information this September. Public tolerance for corruption had reached boiling point with companies, parties and even the royal family seemingly acting with impunity after graft allegations. The new legislation is now headed for the Senate, where it will be debated before coming into effect.