According to my family there are better things to do than blog this morning. I am succumbing to the wisdom of my crowd. I may be back later. And there again, maybe not.

Before anyone gets excited about GDP returning to 2008 levels (as is likely to be announced tomorrow) can I refer to this table issued by the ONS on 2 July: The point is an obvious one: even if the absolute level of GDP has returned to the 2008 level GDP per head has not. It
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One of the questions I was asked on Twitter last night was how to spot a tax haven. There is no easy answer to this. One way is to decide for yourself after reading the book Ronen Palan, Christian Chavagneux and I wrote on the subject. This is now a little out of date but available
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As I watched the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games last night it occurred to me just how many participating states are considered to be tax havens. My timeline became active in the theme and as a result I tweeted this: Credit to @daniel_nash for renaming the #CommonwealthGames the #HiddenWealth games because of number of tax
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I was interviewed by Joe Lynam for the Today programme at 6.49 am this morning (a link is available here for the next few days) on the strange case of Lidl’s accounts. What’s strange about Lidl’s accounts is that there are none on public record in the UK. Despite its now economically significant presence in the
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Our economy is in a mess. I think that should be obvious to anyone, and yet you don’t hear that message too often on the BBC news, ITV, Newsnight and much of the print media. Ken Clarke had to leave the government before he could say the UK’s economic recovery is not ‘firm;y rooted’. Even
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The following press release was issue by Chritian Aid today. I think it sound comment: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which is supposed to provide guidelines for good practice among its member states have missed another opportunity to show they are committed to ensuring developing countries benefit from changes in international tax
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According to the FT this morning: Boards must take control of setting a company’s ethical values and be prepared to dismiss chief executives whose values are not compatible with the culture they seek, says the Institute of Business Ethics. As they note: The study comes as trust issues continue to dog corporations, seven years after
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