Financial Transparency Coalition

Global Financial Integrity circulating petition demanding financial transparency

Washington, DC — As the Group of Twenty (G20) finance ministers meets tomorrow in Washington, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) urges leaders to acknowledge the devastating link between illicit financial flows from developing countries, secrecy jurisdictions (tax havens), and global poverty. “Every year the developing world loses as much as $1 trillion to secrecy jurisdictions via government corruption, criminal activity, and commercial tax evasion,” said GFI director Raymond Baker. “This overwhelms official development assistance by a magnitude of 10; curtailing these flows is critical to...

Our colleagues at CCFD-Terre Solidaire in France have prepared a progress report (in French) on what has changed since the G-20 Summit in London last year. Sadly, it does not make for happy reading. The report addresses 12 questions, as follows:

1. Have we seen the end of tax havens?
2. What purpose have the OECD black and grey lists served?
3. Are tax authorities able to tackle evaders more easily?
4. Is G-20 capable of publishing a full and proper list of tax havens?
5. What have been major success stories for tax authorities since...

Last night, 194 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from the UNCAC Civil Society Coalition released a statement calling on the G20 Finance Ministers to tackle the issue of illicit financial flows at their meeting in Washington later this month. The statement essentially mirrors the text of the G20 Transparency Petition - an initiative from Global Financial Integrity to gather 100,000 signatures calling on the G20 to address the serious issue of illicit financial flows by creating transparency in the international financial system. You can add your list to the petition at www.G20Transparency.com. Scroll down...

Vice President Joe Biden brought his fundraising muscle to Detroit yesterday to raise money for Democratic House members Gary Peters and Mark Schauer. During his remarks the Veep said that the economic crisis was caused by wild west tactics among the best and brightest on Wall Street. “The rules were being made by the cowboys on Wall Street,” Biden is reported to have said according to Politico. If so, where is the Sheriff? Twenty sheriffs met in Pittsburgh in September (read: G20) but they didn’t implement the financial transparency procedures needed to get the cowboys out of the...