Financial Transparency Coalition

This week the world saw a huge leap forward on automatic tax information exchange and, more broadly, the effort to crack down on tax evasion. As the recent investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has shown, governments around the world have a big problem, not only with tax evasion specifically, but also the broader use of offshore vehicles for hiding cash and corruption. Yet this week, the governments of ten European nations have answered this challenge in stunning fashion. Their efforts have ignited momentum on an effort that could be an integral part of not only reducing tax...

DG TAXUD, the taxation and customs department of the EU civil service, is working on a strategy on tax havens and unfair tax competition to be released in the last quarter of the year. This is an extremely welcome step, as the communication addresses several key issues. It recognises that not only double taxation but also double non-taxation is a problem when working out how to tax cross border wealth and income; proposes the introduction of automatic information exchange at EU level; and explores several concrete measures against non-cooperative tax jurisdictions and aggressive tax planning. However, in many ways...

Recognizing the relationship between anonymous shell corporations and stolen assets, the World Bank released a collection of case studies entitled “The Grand Corruption Cases Database Project” last week. Part of a larger anti-corruption report The Puppet Masters: How the Corrupt Use Legal Structures to Hide Stolen Assets and What to Do About It, the global collection has made 150 beneficial ownership case studies available online. Thus, users can compare instances of shell corporations between countries and see the state of individual cases and appeals.

Eastern Europe has been wracked with corruption scandals over the past few weeks. In Hungary, Transparency International released a report about the cozy relationship between business and government in the country, and warns that the government’s internal checks and balances are breaking down. In Slovakia, Smer-Social Democracy party took over the government in part due to a massive corruption scandal. Earlier this year, two ex-ministers of Romania were jailed on corruption charges and Romaina’s former prime minister became the country’s first head of government to be convicted of corruption. The truth is, though, that corruption in Eastern Europe is not...