Financial Transparency Coalition

HONG KONG – Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee presented the country’s annual budget on February 28, which contained measures to ease the tax burden on investment as well as changes to indirect taxes, proposals to tackle 'black money' and a commitment to move forward with the new Direct Taxes Code.

For some time we have been mooting the idea of creating a new organisation dedicated to assisting the governments of low-income countries through provision of expertise in tax policies and tax administration. We have provisionally given this organisation the working title of Tax Advisers Without Borders, echoing the incredible achievement of Medecins sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). We see this as an important component of the tax justice agenda. We think there are many recently retired tax officials and practitioners who would welcome the opportunity to use their expertise in a truly constructive way. One of our supporters, a very...

The Financial Times is running an editorial today entitled a taxing world which is mostly very good. First, though, after a brief exploration of the UK Uncut phenomenon ("the group has a point") there is something we’d disagree with. The FT says this:

Tax avoidance is legal and legitimate. Unlike tax evasion, it is not obviously immoral to exploit the tax code to pay the least that is legally required.

It is up to government to plug the leaks, the FT said. No. For starters, as we constantly argue, what is legal is not necessarily what...

The private sector plays an important role in sustainable democratic and economic development. By creating jobs and opportunities, providing necessary goods and services, and thus improving people’s living standards, private enterprise in a market economy offers citizens the ability to prosper independently of state-provided goods and services. That, in turn, gives citizens the necessary leverage to hold their government accountable because public officials rely on citizens for support, not the other way around. An accountable and efficient public sector is still a necessary part of development, though, and governments and private businesses...