Financial Transparency Coalition

Terminology is essential to any serious action against secrecy jurisdictions. The term of secrecy jurisdiction is relatively recent and we owe it to Tax Justice Network and others, which have demonstrated the important secrecy component of a certain number of jurisdictions. The term tends to replace “offshore centres”, a more descriptive and a bit misleading expression which does not refer to offshore islands but tries to depict the role of the centre as a financial intermediary in a trade conducted elsewhere, with most assets and most liabilities being invested or held abroad. The advocacy value of the term...

The Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development conference in Bergen starting on 28 September also sees a side event on that day when Danish NGO IBIS and a range of its partner launch a new report. That report – entitled ‘Investments for Development: Derailed to Tax Havens: A report on the use of tax havens by Development Finance Institutions’ – has been written by UK based chartered accountant Richard Murphy (me), the director of Tax Research UK, a member organisation of the Co-ordinating Committee. The report, which is sponsored by IBIS, NCA, CRBM, Eurodad, Forum Syd...

Richard Murphy points out the genius of today's Dilbert cartoon. It speaks for itself:

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....