The Guardian reported last night that:
Labour has said that if it was in government the Department for International Development would stop using the services of the “big four” accountancy firms to deliver aid projects if they or their clients continued to use tax havens.
The party said the Luxleaks scandal demonstrated how the firms promoted international tax avoidance, which costs developing nations $200bn (£140bn) a year, 50% more than the total amount they receive in aid from rich countries.
Diane Abbott, the shadow secretary for international development, said: “There is a clear conflict of interest in Dfid spending aid through these firms to reduce global poverty because these companies are themselves fuelling legal theft of the developing world's public finances. This practice undermines development work.
I would stress that I am aware of the debate about the scale of cost to developing nations from international tax abuse: I would add that work I did for the World Bank as long ago as 2010 suggested the number quoted is plausible.
That though is not the key issue here. The focus on the Big 4 is. They are, as my 2010 work on their locations (also originally prepared for the World Bank) showed, the one continual ever present certainty within tax havens. Without them the world's offshore architecture would be very different indeed. The focus on them is, then, appropriate. That is because the one thing that could most certainly bring tax haven abuse to an end, virtually overnight, is the withdrawal of these firms from those places, which would then mean that no bank and many firms of lawyers and almost no multinational company could then make use of them.
If anyone wanted to pick an appropriate target on which toi bring pressure to bear they are, then, the right one to choose.
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It would be interesting to find out what both you and Dianne Abbott mean by “tax haven”? It certainly doesn’t follow the meaning developed by the OECD.
I would suggest that the language used by yourself practically means every country in the developed world is a tax haven, thus rendering your use of the term self-serving and thus meaningless.
Start with all scoring more than 60 for se cry on the TJN FSI
At least some of us have done the work
Justin’s comment reminds me of the old joke about the definition of Hell – a definition given in the form of a story, so here goes.
Well, Hell is like a meeting of people whose job it is to define a new Code of Practice, and one of the members is the Devil. So, the poor, trapped, committee members, have been arguing for around 3 million years about the correct ordering of the opening, descriptive, paragraphs to the Code, and the Chairman (who – my addition -in life was a particularly grasping, and tax-avoiding, user of tax havens – or secrecy jurisdictions – BOTH terms having been MORE than adequately explained to anyone who was NOT sleeping in class, and who had been paying attention.NB Justin!)
The poor Chair (I think we MAY pity him, even while relishing the aptness of his punishment) eagerly looks around the members of the Committee, all enthusiastically nodding assent, as he utters the words “Well, ladies and gentlemen, now that that’s settled, Perhaps we can move on to next business?”
At this point, the Devil intervenes with the deadly words: “Mr Chairman, on a point of order!” Whereupon the other members of the Committee burst into tears, knowing they face another million years dealing with the Devil’s point of order.
Brilliant stuff Andrew, but perhaps it is you should pay attention.
“The term tax haven is, however, so widely misunderstood that this paper does not use it, preferring instead to use the term ‘secrecy jurisdiction’.”
(Richard Murphy in the paper referred to above – Pg.4)
Now you’re trolling
I suggest you save yourself time by not bothering again