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...

Taxation News & Information—Worldwide tax changes and transparency measures need to be implemented soon in order to fight capital flight from poverty-stricken nations and worldwide tax evasion.

The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the attached outcome document for the 2010 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit by consensus on September 22, 2010. The document puts forth an action agenda for achieving the MDGs by 2015; the agenda includes tackling the issue of illicit financial flows as one of the action items.

Yaoundé, Cameroon, sits at the heart of Central Africa. The region is rich with mineral and forestry wealth which has been exploited ruthlessly by colonial powers and powerful corporations for centuries. You need only read the short historical paragraph on Yaoundé's Wikipedia entry to get a sense of this past and present intrusion by external powers. Much of Central Africa's wealth disappears offshore, and constant exploitation has exposed the region to deep rooted political and commercial corruption. This is the context in which tax justice researchers and campaigners...