Financial Transparency Coalition

This week's featured video shows an excellent discussion about beneficial ownership from the Task Force 2011 Conference in Paris, France.  They discuss how a lack of disclosed beneficial ownership protects corrupt dictators and tax dodgers from law enforcement scrutiny, why legitimate businesses will not be hurt by the requirement, and implications for international development.

This video shows a discussion about beneficial ownership from the Task Force 2011 Conference in Paris, France. Panelists discuss how a lack of disclosed beneficial ownership protects corrupt dictators and tax dodgers from law enforcement scrutiny, why legitimate businesses will not be hurt by the requirement, and implications for international development.

WASHINGTON DC - At a time of international financial crisis, where good news is hard to come by, lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives have introduced legislation that could go a long way in stopping money laundering in the world’s largest economy. This comes as the European Union begins to prepare its fourth anti-money laundering directive and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) gets ready to issue a revised set of recommendations early next year.

Imagine for a moment that airline security were left up to individual states, rather than the federal government. It’s perhaps not too much of a stretch of the imagination to conclude that different states would adopt different levels of security. For example, some states might require their passengers to provide identification to ensure they aren’t terrorists and pass their bags through x-ray machines to ensure those passengers aren’t trying to load illicit materials onto the airplane. Other states, though, might think it’s advantageous to reduce their security requirements. They might argue that by reducing screening, they could trim down...