Tax havens undermine democracy. They do this through their promotion of a process called tax competition. As one of the proponents of tax competition, Richard Teather, a lecturer at Bournemouth University has said: Tax competition acts as a check on governments’ ability to raise taxes; it ensures that governments have more limited funds and thus
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It has occurred to me that there are six stages in the process of creating Tax Justice. They are: Define It’s vital we agree what the tax base is. This has to facilitate progressive taxation and the promotion of better use of resources within society. Find If you can’t locate what is to be taxed
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Geoff Cook of Jersey Finance was on the Today programme this morning. John Whiting of PWC was the respondent. Let’s be blunt this was blatant bias within the BBC – John Whiting is a recognised apologist for Jersey – has sought to exonerate its abuse in the past – has been paid to do so
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The Chartered Institute of Tax issued a press release this morning saying: The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) is calling for a moratorium on further major changes to the tax system from the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, when he stands up to deliver his Budget on Wednesday 22 April. The CIOT believes, that in these turbulent
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The collapse of the Dunfermline Building Society proves: The urgent need for a Glass Steagall Act in the UK to enforce a split between routine banking based on deposit taking and speculative activity. It was speculative activity in buying second-hand mortgages and in property related speculation that seems to have brought this building society down.
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The 3,000th post on this blog happened this morning. Roughly 1,000,000 words in 27 months. Has it been worth it? Oh yes. Look at the NGOs who have taken courage to campaign on this issue. Look at the role of the tax haven issue now. I’m not saying for one minute that’s all because of
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A banker of my acquaintance sent me the following list of challenges for the Banking Code: Banks should be asked to sign up at Board level The code will apply to all taxes Banks should be encouraged to issue a press release to confirm when they have signed Banks that have signed up may be
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I drafted the Tax Justice Network and Association for Accountancy and Business Affairs Code of Conduct on taxation. This is available here. The actual Code is just two pages long and reads as follows: A Code of Conduct for Taxation Objective This Code of Conduct relates to the payment of taxes due to a State
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I’d draw attention to some articles I wrote about Barclays. All suggestion the legal and ethical underpinning that could make a Banking Code on tax viable. These dealt with the need for a change in the way the law on tax is interpreted. I argue we do not need to be constrained by 19th century
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