Financial Transparency Coalition

Green MEP Sven Giegold tabled a question to the European Commission in July asking about the EU’s position on the IASB’s revision to its constitution that has downgraded its obligation to anyone but those people who use accounts to make investment decisions. I discussed that issue here. Now the Commission has replied as follows:

Answer given by Mr Barnier on behalf of the Commission The Commission shares the view of the Honourable Member regarding the importance of properly taking into account the public interest in the IFRS standards setting.

PARIS (OECD) – Due to the recent financial and economic crisis, global corporate losses have increased significantly. Numbers at stake are vast, with loss carry-forwards as high as 25% of GDP in some countries. Though most of these claims are justified, some corporations find loop-holes and use ‘aggressive tax planning’ to avoid taxes in ways that are not within the spirit of the law.

The UK has initialed an agreement with Switzerland which we recently wrote up on the Task Force blog. In short, UK tax evaders using banks in Switzerland will have to start paying some tax - but the UK will allow those (criminal) tax evaders to avoid penalties and retain their anonymity. The UK will have to trust that Switzerland will keep its part of the bargain, even though it will be impossible to conduct any comprehensive checks. There are reasonable fears that this model may spread widely to other countries. We at TJN think this is a thoroughly rotten and...

LONDON - The new tax deal between the UK and Switzerland amounts to collusion with criminality and will seriously damage poor countries’ attempts to collect the billions they lose to tax dodgers, Christian Aid is warning.