September 9th, 2009
This picture, dug out of a new report from Oxfam-France, tells it all. This is why development organisations are getting interested in the offshore system and international tax matters, at last.
It is the visual counterpart of the sentence uttered by Raymond Baker of Global Financial Integrity in Washington, comparing foreign aid inflows to developing countries with the secret outflows:
"for every $1 that we have been generously handing out across the top of the table, we in the West have been taking back some $10 of...
September 8th, 2009
Global Financial Integrity and the American Interest sponsored a briefing by New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau today which highlighted the growing connection between Iran and Venezuela. From GFI's release:
Addressing an audience of academics, civil society groups, Congressional staff, and journalists, Mr. Morgenthau discussed how the “blossoming relationship” between Iran and Venezuela presented opportunities for Iran to circumvent U.S. and international economic sanctions designed to prevent them from developing long-range missile capacity and nuclear technology for military purposes.
Mr. Morgenthau cited “scores of Memoranda of Understanding” between the two nations with...
September 2nd, 2009
As the Tax Justice Network notes:
Tucked away low down in an article in the August edition of the Swiss review, there is this:
“Switzerland has become a paradise for foreign capital on which tax is not paid. The uproar from foreign governments is understandable.”
These are not the words of a critic of the banks, but of private banker Konrad Hummler. He says that around 30%, or CHF 1,000 billion, of the CHF 2,800 billion or so of foreign assets in Swiss banks is untaxed “black money”.
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August 28th, 2009
Forbes Magazine has published an excellent
article today which highlights the massive problem of
transfer mispricing and the risk it poses to shareholders. The article cites GFI Director Raymond Baker as well as GFI's Illicit Financial Flows
report several times. From
Forbes:
Shareholders in many of the world's leading multinational corporations face significant financial peril from a source few have probably ever thought about: transfer pricing.
So says Raymond Baker, director of Global Financial Integrity, a non-profit in Washington, D.C., that promotes policies aimed at curtailing the...
