Financial Transparency Coalition

Cross-posted, with small amendments, from the Treasure Islands blog. A new report from the IMF (hat tip: Markus Henn) tallies surprisingly closely, at least in part, with what members of the Task Force have been saying for some time. Take this, for example, on the role of secrecy jurisdictions (the IMF prefers the term Offshore Financial Centers, or OFCs:)

Before the 2008–09 economic crisis, many banks and hedge funds used OFCs for off-balance-sheet activities such as the so-called special purpose vehicles or structured investment vehicles. These vehicles were typically funded in onshore financial...

WASHINGTON, DC – As the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) convenes its third meeting of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes in Bermuda today, addressing deficiencies in the current OECD standard of tax information exchange is crucial, said Global Financial Integrity (GFI).

LONDON – Christian Aid is urging the Chancellor to consider how poor countries could be harmed by a deal allowing UK citizens with secret Swiss bank accounts to continue hiding their identities from the British taxman.

A couple of weeks ago I presented evidence to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee. My evidence will be published shortly. This week Dave Hartnett also gave evidence to that committee, and at least in part on the same subject: employee benefit trusts. As Accountancy Age reports:

told the Lords Economic Affairs Finance Bill Sub-Committee: “Some of the offshore arrangements have been pretty opaque to us for some time.”

Hartnett said: “It is not always possible to use the exchange of information provisions under treaties and other things to expose those.”

The disclosure regime had...