Financial Transparency Coalition

In November 2010, the European Commission (EC) opened a public consultation to “seek stakeholders’ views on financial reporting on a country-by-country basis by Multinational Companies (MNCs).” Country-by-country reporting standards would require that MNCs provide information on the profits earned and taxes paid in each of the countries where they operate. Eurodad and other civil society organisations believe that such reporting standards would enhance financial transparency and would provide crucial information needed by developing countries to enhance collection of taxes on the profits made by companies in their countries. While several NGOs, including Eurodad, contributed to the public consultation with a...

The Financial Times is running an editorial today entitled a taxing world which is mostly very good. First, though, after a brief exploration of the UK Uncut phenomenon ("the group has a point") there is something we’d disagree with. The FT says this:

Tax avoidance is legal and legitimate. Unlike tax evasion, it is not obviously immoral to exploit the tax code to pay the least that is legally required.

It is up to government to plug the leaks, the FT said. No. For starters, as we constantly argue, what is legal is not necessarily what...

The European Union is undertaking a consultation on country-by-country reporting, the closing date for submissions being 22 December. At their request I have prepared a quite lengthy submission which elaborates and advances the case for country-by-country reporting by multinational corporations in a number of significant ways. This has been published by the Tax Justice Network: As the summary says:

This report is a full response to the questions posed by the European Commission in public consultation on country-by-country reporting by multinational companies, published in October 2010. The submission elaborates the summary responses posted on line to the European...

The private sector plays an important role in sustainable democratic and economic development. By creating jobs and opportunities, providing necessary goods and services, and thus improving people’s living standards, private enterprise in a market economy offers citizens the ability to prosper independently of state-provided goods and services. That, in turn, gives citizens the necessary leverage to hold their government accountable because public officials rely on citizens for support, not the other way around. An accountable and efficient public sector is still a necessary part of development, though, and governments and private businesses...