Financial Transparency Coalition

United Press International published a great piece today from their Asia bureau about India's struggle with black money. From the article:

Taking advantage of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s sanction threats against tax havens, the Indian government is taking a hard look at the country’s plethora of Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements. But laying a hand on the enormous amount of the country’s illegal or black money stashed abroad may be easier said than done.

The topic of illicit financial flows out of India has become a big issue in recent years, but...

Kolkata, India — Taking advantage of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s sanction threats against tax havens, the Indian government is taking a hard look at the country’s plethora of Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements. But laying a hand on the enormous amount of the country’s illegal or black money stashed abroad may be easier said than done.

Last month the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris removed the last holdouts Andorra, Lichtenstein and Monaco from its blacklist of "uncooperative" tax havens. With every OECD-targeted tax haven across the globe now committed to tax "transparency and exchange of information," according to the organization's Committee on Fiscal Affairs, the world seems to have entered a new era.

For more than half a century the Alpine nation of Switzerland has built a reputation as the world´s centre for tax evasion, fraud accounting, money laundering, racketeering, save haven and above all a staunch ally of corrupt third world leaders and a great beneficiary of third world corruption. For more than 70 years various categories of persons including Popes, presidents, prime ministers, corrupt dictators, wealthy business men, and drug dealers have all used and benefited from the banking secrecy laws of Switzerland. As a result her economy has been described in various terms as underground economy, deposit box for...