Financial Transparency Coalition

NEW DELHI: Ahead of G20 meet in South Korea, think-tank Oxfam said the bloc of 20 countries should devise methods to tackle tax havens, so that the interest of developing nations could be protected.

We have been reading occasional stories about the foreclosure mess in the United States. For those who don't know about it, here is a quick summary, to start with. In the run-up to the financial crisis that erupted in 2007, banks and other financial institutions packaged up bundles of mortgages into entities which were then themselves diced up and sold on, once or more than once, to other investors, in a process known as securitisation. The chain of ownership between houseowner and the ultimate holder of the mortgage risk often involved many links,...

I am fascinated by the recent attack on my work and that of John Christensen and the Tax Justice Network by Cayman Finance. It is not new of course, many tax havens / secrecy jurisdictions have made such attacks before. And no doubt they will do is again. But in making such a tax they show their real colours: they show that they are the real enemies of free and fair markets, and we are their strongest supporters. Why else would they be so annoyed? If you believe in free markets you believe in tax...