Financial Transparency Coalition

NEW DELHI: India and Norway are all set to expand the scope of their double taxation avoidance agreement (DTAA) to facilitate greater information exchange on potential cases of tax evasion. After changes to the Indo-Swiss tax treaty this would be the second such treaty that would be reworked to ensure smooth flow of information on tax-related issues.

On Monday, amid much fanfare, Switzerland signed a revised double tax treaty with India, concerning exchange of information between the two jurisdictions (for general background on what tax treaties and TIEAs are, see here.) Recently, we blogged Indian concerns about the OECD's standard of information exchange, and we have written extensively on the OECD standards themselves, calling them woefully inadequate and noting that they are emphtically not, as the OECD likes to assert, the "internationally accepted standard." It may be a sign of the pressures that developing countries are under that...

Christian Aid is launching a new phase of its Trace the Tax campaign for greater financial transparency by multinational companies. The charity is asking supporters to help persuade four firms to back its call for accounting reforms which will help poor countries collect more of the tax billions which are rightfully theirs. All four have assets and subsidiaries in developing countries. They are: Vodafone, Unilever, TUI Travel (which owns Thomson and First Choice) and Intercontinental Hotels Group (which owns Holiday Inn). Helen Collinson, Campaigns Manager at Christian Aid said: ‘We are appealing to these companies to support our campaign for greater tax...