Financial Transparency Coalition

Two years ago an edition of Tax Justice Focus contained a lead article entitled Shadow Regulation and the Shadow Banking System: the role of the Dublin International Financial Services Centre. Written by Jim Stewart, Senior Lecturer in Finance, Trinity College, Dublin, it looked at the role in the global financial crisis played by the tax haven / secrecy jurisdiction of Ireland, and in particular the Dublin International Financial Services Centre (IFSC.) We added this to our Economic Crisis + Offshore webpage. Now we have just added to that same web page a major new article by...

The powerless have few tools to use against the powerful. Sometimes the powerless are a minority. Sometimes they are a majority. Suffrage, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press are tools civilizations have developed to give powerless people more power. But the other side has its own tools, which the powerful use to perpetuate their power. Corruption and nepotism are the most obvious examples. These tools are not only used by theocrats and autocrats. They are used in democracies too, and they erode democratic systems by concentrating power in the hands of a few, depriving the powerless of...

If companies were people and those who violated the laws were criminals, then BAE Systems would be a repeat offender. Actually I’m not sure repeat offender even begins to cover it. Here’s some background. BAE Systems is a defense contractor with products and services for air, land, and naval forces, including electronics, intelligence, weapons, among many others. It’s a British company, but over half of its $12 billion annual sales in its land and armaments business is with the United States. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, BAE is the largest armaments company in the...

In May 2010, Christian Aid published a report entitled ‘Tax of Life’ highlighting the impact of tax dodging on Irish Aid programme countries. It’s a somewhat obvious point. Why would a country in times of austerity give aid to a country without considering the impact of international policies on the ability of that country to develop. Tax is something that is growing in importance in the development world. The European Council recently published conclusions which approved a paper emphasising...