Financial Transparency Coalition

At its annual conference last week, the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development identified concrete measures that could help developing countries to mobilise the resources needed to achieve the Millennium Developing Goals (MDGs) and go even further to help eradicate world poverty and lay the ground for a fairer global financial system. These measures include:

• taxing the USD 15 to 20 trillion of private wealth sitting in tax havens
• establishing accounting standards that oblige multinational companies to report their profits earned in every country
• or setting rules for the automatic exchange of tax information between countries.

The Task Force...

Illicit financial inflows and illicit financial outflows must be added together in order to accurately measure the adverse impact of these flows on developing economies, explains Dr. Dev Kar.

From Bloomberg:

China’s households hide as much as 9.3 trillion yuan ($1.4 trillion) of income that is not reported in official figures, with 80 percent accrued by the wealthiest people, a study showed. The money, much of it likely “illegal or quasi-illegal,” equates to about 30 percent of China’s gross domestic product, the study, conducted for Credit Suisse AG and published last week by the China Reform Foundation, found.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—A May 2010 report from Global Financial Integrity (GFI) examines where trillions of dollars in illicit finances—the proceeds of crime, corruption, and tax evasion—are being deposited.