Financial Transparency Coalition

If you're anything like me, you may have spent an hour waiting in line at the U.S. post office yesterday. I realize I'm a blogger, and a graduate student, and in my twenties -- and all of these factors made me rather unlike the typical pen-and-paper-tax-filer -- but there's just something so satisfying about addressing an envelope (and sometimes a check) to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Thanks to an AP report that came out yesterday, we now know of yet another reason shell companies are used to keep information in the shadows, but this one involves a U.S. government agency and a "Cuban Twitter".

This post originally appeared on the blog of FTC member, Tax Justice Network. Last year, our colleagues at New Rules for Global Finance published a ground-breaking report on the governance and accountability of the leading financial rule-setting institutions, including those covering international tax cooperation, such as the G20, the OECD, the UN Tax Committee, and the IMF.  Their report is available here.

New index reveals UK runs biggest part of global secrecy network TJN’s 2013 Financial Secrecy Index exposes yawning gap between G20 rhetoric and reality Today the Tax Justice Network launches its 2013 Financial Secrecy Index, the biggest ever survey of global financial secrecy. This unique index combines a secrecy score with a weighting to create a ranking of the countries that most actively and aggressively promote secrecy in global finance. Click here for the Financial Secrecy Index. This new edition of the Financial Secrecy Index shows that the United Kingdom is the most important global player in the financial secrecy world. While the...