Financial Transparency Coalition

I have suggested before, and I will suggest again, that transfer pricing is contributor to the tax gap. Oddly (!) the tax profession – and especially those parts with links to secrecy jurisdictions – deny this. Many are not convinced by such arguments. Take this testimony given by the IRS to Congress in July:

Testimony of Stephen E. Shay Deputy Assistant Secretary (International Tax Affairs) U.S. Department of the Treasury Before the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means July 22, 2010 Chairman Levin, Ranking Member Camp and members of the Committee, thank you for the...

A while ago we pointed to a study by Misereor that had concluded, on the subject of double tax treaties (DTTs) and tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs), that Only 6 percent of DTTs show a signature of a Low Income Country (with an even smaller participation of 3 percent for Least Developed Countries). The situation with TIEAs is even worse: There is no single LIC (leaving aside LDC) as signing party of any TIEA documented on the OECD website. . . . While G20 and OECD are promoting DTTs and TIEAs as centrepieces of a global standard on transparency...

I have suggested that if we are to reform offshore we have to start at home, and have detailed a programme of reform that many governments would have to undertake. I have also suggested a programme of reform for secrecy jurisdictions and for the international arena that regulates those secrecy jurisdictions. But that is not enough. Regulation enforces rules. The fact is that hearts and minds also have to be won over for change to be effective in the long run. For this to happen there needs to be reform in the...

I was asked recently what ten issues I would prioritise if I was to tackle offshore. The person making the request didn’t want much detail, just a list, but I’m not that good at doing “just lists” so I thought I’d share my thinking over a number of blogs. First things first, I’d not list ten things. That suggests there are discrete action points in this area, and I’m not sure that’s true. So I offer five areas of activity where I’d develop issues, as I will in the blogs to come. They are: 1....