Financial Transparency Coalition

Senator Carl Levin (aka “Watchdog of America”) is at it again. Yesterday morning the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which Senator Levin (D-MI) chairs, held a hearing to investigate HSBC, the UK-based bank and Europe’s largest financial institution, which has allegedly systematically (and knowingly) lapsed its anti-money laundering systems and allowed suspicious transactions into the United States. According to the subcommittee’s investigative report released Monday, HSBC systematically ignored warnings and failed to stop illegal behavior many times between 2001 and 2010. The report found HSBC accepted deposits intoU.S. branches from Mexican drug cartels, Saudi Arabian banks with terrorist ties,...

The U.S. Federal government is in some dark times. Unable to find a political compromise to raise the debt ceiling, the U.S. faces a potential economic catastrophe. Negotiations are stalling. Tempers are flaring on both sides of the aisle. The key point of contention? Tax increases. President Obama has reportedly endorsed reducing the debt by $2 trillion with 83% of the reduction coming from spending cuts and 17% coming from new revenues. Those proposed new revenues (or “tax increases” as some have called them) would have come from closing tax loopholes for things like corporate jet ownership. But House...

Towards the end of last month, Ann Hollingshead blogged about Businesses and Investors against Tax Haven Abuse, a coalition of over 400 small business owners and investors looking to curb the use of tax havens and shell companies by their larger multinational competitors. But how exactly do these multinational entities use tax havens? One method, which takes advantage of the disparity in tax rates between jurisdictions, is transfer pricing. Transfer pricing is an issue that has been described as incredibly lucrative to those involved and...