Financial Transparency Coalition

The international edition of the Financial Times has a comment by TJN's Nick Shaxson and John Christensen evaluating how far the G-20 countries have progressed towards their stated goal of tackling banking secrecy and tax havens. The title says it all: "Time to black-list the tax haven whitewash." In April 2009 British prime minister Gordon Brown, the then G-20 president, issued the following commitment:

"to take action against non-cooperative jurisdictions, including tax havens. We stand ready to deploy sanctions to protect our public finances and financial systems. The era of banking secrecy is over. We note that the OECD has today published...

WASHINGTON, DC – A new global campaign challenging French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the G20 to make a firm commitment to ending tax haven secrecy launched today at the World Social Forum in Dakar. Organizations involved include ActionAid, Christian Aid, Eurodad, Global Financial Integrity, Oxfam International and the Tax Justice Network.