Action Aid issued a press release this morning saying:
ActionAid welcomes Gordon Brown’s initiative to reduce world poverty - the Call to Action - and recognises that corporations must be involved in the challenge. But the charity says that the UK and other governments are missing a crucial opportunity to raise billions of dollars for the […]
Yesterday’s news that a senior partner in international accountants PKF has been arrested on charges of blatant tax evasion is, I regret, a matter of little surprise. It does however draw attention to a major deficit in the whole initiative to stop tax haven abuse.
Tax havens are best described as ‘legislative spaces’. That means they […]
The FT has reported that:
A tax of one-hundredth of a percentage point on global financial transactions could provide hundreds of billions of dollars for developing countries facing the challenges of soaring commodity prices and climate change, the United Nations heard this week.
This is, of course, a reference to a Tobin Tax. I wholeheartedly endorse this […]
The first quarter 2008 edition of Tax Justice Focus published by the Tax Justice Network is a special edition focusing on the preparations for the United Nations meeting on Finance for Development in Doha, Qatar, from November 29-December 2, 2008. TJN’s press release on this says:
In the editorial, The Road to Doha, we look at […]
India is doing a great job for the developing and intermediate states of the world right now with regard to taxation.
In the Vodafone case that it is taking it is arguing that capital gains arise in the place where an asset is actually located, and not in the tax haven that a multinational corporation wants […]
Prem Sikka had this letter in the FT yesterday, follwoing on from a blog here:
PM’s proposed cure for markets is problematic
From Prof Prem Sikka.
Sir, The UK prime minister’s view that a deficit of transparency, particularly in commercial organisations, is the source of many of the problems plaguing financial markets is spot on (”Ways to fix […]
Forbes has reported that President Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia has announced the cancellation of all tax concessions for copper mining companies operating in Zambia, saying they were ‘unfair and unbalanced’ and that in their place ‘The government has, therefore, decided to introduce a new fiscal and regulatory regime in order to bring about equitable distribution […]
More from the OECD tax conference in South Africa:
The OECD’s Deputy Secretary General, Pierre Carlo Padoan, says capital flight to tax havens is harming the continent’s development.
He says while Africa is beginning to fulfil its economic potential, better tax revenues are needed to finance the infrastructure and the skills needed for a vibrant economy.
Read the […]
Trevor Manuel, South Africa’s Finance Minister, is one of the rock stars of his profession. His keynote speech to the the world’s tax experts at the latest OECD forum on Tax Administration in beautiful Cape Town are right on the money. Quoted in South Africa’s Business Day, he said:
Smaller, poorer countries with tax administrations that […]
TheTimes has reported that:
The Pope, who is preparing an encyclical on the social effects of globalisation, gave a homily at St Peter’s yesterday on the feast of the Epiphany in which he deplored the West’s “search for excess and the superfluous”. He said:
The conflicts for economic supremacy, and the scramble for energy and water resources […]
