Ten years ago I created the concept of country-by-country reporting. Now the European Commission wants to apply it to banks, but the UK and Germany, in particular, are objecting.
This is utterly hypocritical on their part: both say tax avoidance is at the top of their agenda. Banks are at the heart of the tax avoidance industry. Knowing what they do and where is vital to beating tax avoidance. Country-by-country reporting would tell us that.
Worse, George Osborne says he wants country-by-country reporting for oil and mineral companies in Africa but not for banks in London. The dual standard implied is indication of how hollow his and David Cameron's commitment is to beating tax avoidance.
Now Avaaz are organising an urgent petition in support of country-by-country reporting for banks. Please sign it, here. And this is urgent: the EU negotiation on this is tomorrow. Avaaz want 150,000 signatures on this petition by then. That's a long way forward from the audience for my first paper on this subject, which I thought would be just two people.
As I said in Brussels today, we've won the argument on the ideas. Now we need the action. Please help deliver it.
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As soon as possible please.
signed. for all the good it’ll do. (sorry, these bastards just get you down sometimes)
Ditto John. I’ve also emailed the treasury using the link supplied by Avaaz. I’m not holding my breath of course, but oyu never know, maybe some kind of sense will prevail.
Signed and distributed..
You didn’t create it, of course, as you well know
Why then do PWC only reference my work on the subject? http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/tax/publications/tax-transparency-reporting.jhtml
And why was I the first to write about it? http://visar.csustan.edu/aaba/ProposedAccstd.pdf
How on earth is this a useful comment, Gutbucket? The site is trying to spread the message about creating a fairer tax system and you’re more interested in attacking the author. It’s like football fans who just go to a match to shout abuse at the opposition fans without watching the game.
None of which should stop you signing the petition.
However, if you don’t want to sign it, then your reasons for doing so would be far more interesting to discuss in the comments section…
What a surprise the UK and Germany government don’t want it because with the largest two banking centres in Europe, it is sure to show that a lot of transactions in other European countries get booked in London or Frankfurt, and thus get taxed there. So after losing billions in taxes on financial crisis writedowns, the UK and Germany would lose the future tax revenues as transactions come back.
A great idea in theory, but getting into practice will not be easy.