Financial Transparency Coalition

IPPR produced a report on globalisation last week. With a forward by Lord Mandelson the report was written by Will Straw and Alex Glennie. I admit I don’t agree with either Mandelson or Straw; they have a political perspective I don’t always share but this report has merit to it, as others have also noted since its publication. It represents a clear change of heart on Peter Mandelson’s part, and that I welcome.

Reuter's David Cay Johnston wrote on Richard Murphy and Tax Justice Network's report on worldwide tax evasion this week. The best part? An excellent graphic of the top-10 countries by amount of tax evasion, set up against the size of their informal economies.

EURODAD recently held a roundtable in the European Parliament on 21st November to launch its new report “Exposing the lost billions. How financial transparency by multinationals on a country-by-country basis can aid development." This report explains why under current accounting regulations it is so easy for multinational companies to dodge taxes and proposes full country-by-country reporting as a key solution.

I was delighted to talk at the launch of Eurodad’s new report – ‘Exposing the lost billions: How financial transparency by multinationals on a country by country basis can aid development‘ – last evening in the European Parliament. The report is on country-by-country reporting and is another major contribution to the debate now going on in Europe on this issue, and how far such reporting should go.