The Guardian reports: Ireland‘s embattled banks need to be bolstered by an extra €24bn (£21bn) – some €13bn of which needs to be used to prop up the troubled Allied Irish Banks (AIB). It takes the total bill for repairing the hole in the banking sector caused by the bursting of the Irish property bubble
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The Guardian reports: The number of households defaulting on mortgage loans increased “unexpectedly” in the first three months of the year, and is expected to rise further, according to the Bank of England. Hang on: We have pay freezes And falls in net household income And inflation fuelled by government policy And rising unemployment And
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When it comes to tax policy, is Ireland a fine example or ahorrible warning? This new report by Dr Sheila Killian of the University of Limerick argues that Ireland’s corporate tax regime can be abused by multinational companies (MNCs) engaged in tax evasion and illicit capital flows. Despite recent reforms to transfer pricing rules, significant
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A paper with the above title has been written by Gabriel Zucman of the Paris School of Economics. As the abstract of the pretty technical paper says: This paper draws on direct evidence from Swiss banks and on systematic inconsistencies in international accounts across countries to document the level of unrecorded wealth in tax havens,
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The following data comes from polling done last week by Unison and reported yesterday by the TUC: The questions gave respondents the opportunity to choose betwen the kind of argument, one a union might put and one the government would put. That can be a good polling technique as it means that you are not
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I could reproduce an excellent Tax Justice Network blog with the above title here. Just go to their place to read it instead. Who is winning in the GE v NYT debate so far. Well look at what the Business Insider says: “Wow, just when we thought it was over… The NYT may be off
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Yesterday Alan Greenspan was in the FT saying regulation had to be abolished so financial markets could fly again. As Paul Krugman had to say of his diatribe: Alan Greenspan continues his efforts to cement his reputation as the worst ex-Fed chairman in history; in today’s FT, he comes out for a repeal of financial
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I have been reflecting further on the Fair Pensions debate on fiduciary duty yesterday evening. One speaker – and I do not have his name and it’s too early to ask anyone – had the good fortune to follow an appalling speech by Ed Davey MP who showed a complete lack of grasp of all
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GE says we all got its tax wrong. So I‘ll link their correction, here. As they say: GE pays what it owes under the law and is scrupulous about its compliance with tax obligations in all jurisdictions No one ever said otherwise. We said you lobby to change those obligations. And they say: The Times
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