Financial Transparency Coalition

There’s a perception that big business is strongly opposed to country by country reporting (CBCR) requirements. But a new survey funded by the FTC and carried out by CoCom member Christian Aid has revealed that there’s far less opposition than one might think. Public country by country reporting calls for companies to make basic information about their

So the latest big tax haven whistleblower, Antoine Deltour, is facing the combined massed might of Luxembourg, one of the world’s biggest and most aggressive tax havens, and PWC, one of the biggest and most aggressive lobbyists for offshore tax and secrecy legislation, the Big Four accounting firm. Deltour faces up to ten years in prison.

It’s been argued – even to their shame by Labour politicians – that it’s inappropriate to target individual companies when protesting about tax avoidance. That’s wrong, for three reasons. First, the decision to tax avoid or not is that of the individual company. No one asks them to. Despite the claims made by some company directors and some apologists for this abuse, company directors are under no obligation to minimise their tax bills. Indeed, if doing so increases the risk within their companies it’s quite easy to argue that they’re acting against...

Strategic dispute resolution has become critical for companies to sustain their global transfer pricing strategies. Now, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) announced its International Transfer Pricing 2009 book which predicts an increase in disputes around the world as more and more tax authorities aggressively attempt to enforce their transfer pricing rules. “In 2009 we expect that several major territories will adopt new or revised requirements for transfer pricing and the impact of the OECD’s discussion draft on business restructurings will be evaluated,” said Garry Stone, a Partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.