Monetary reform is one of the most sensitive of issues, as I know from blogging about it. It seems to bring out the very worst
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The Guardian gives ample evidence as to why our banks have failed today: Lloyds, one of the banks bailed out by the government, has been
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The Straits Times report that: SINGAPORE is not a tax haven even as the Government cuts the corporate tax rate to 17 per cent this
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Reuters has reported: World leaders meeting in London in April should kick-start a “Green New Deal” to fight climate change and revive the crippled global
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These are my links for February 8th through February 10th:

• US labour launches Centre for Green Jobs | ToUChstone blog: A public policy blog from the TUC – We need to invest in the same way
• Principles, what principles? Another KPMG update | – KPMG is so transparent it can't decide if it can disclose its principles

  About as transparent as their work in tax havens then

  And about as transparent as their tax planning as outlined by the Guardian (and here on occasion)

• Tax gap series: Boots moved its headquarters to Switzerland – I have always found this one deeply irritating

  Not least because I think it puts this company in jeopardy

  And because it turns their PR into something that no one can believe

• Tax Justice Network: The City of London Corporation: the state within a state – "When people ask – as they often do these days – which is the biggest tax haven in the world, our answer is almost invariably the City of London. The City hosts Britain's largest offshore financial centre and is intimately linked to [the UK's numerous] satellite tax havens across most time zones.

  Often called The Square Mile, the City is a geographically defined area of the London metropolis. The City is not a London borough, and unbeknownst to almost everybody it has its own distinctive political representative body, the City of London Corporation, which in addition to holding some rather unusual powers – such as the power to organise its own police force – is probably the most powerful and self-interested political lobby in the world. "

  TJN makes the point loud and clear: London is at the centre of the tax haven problem.

• Leaders unsure of need for change will be replaced – The Irish Times – Mon, Feb 09, 2009 – "Last weekend’s security conference in Munich hinted at some major changes. The G20 summit in London at the beginning of April will probably outline others – including a death sentence for offshore tax havens.

  The Guardian newspaper ran a series on corporate tax avoidance in the UK last week. Such tax avoidance was always inequitable; it has now become politically unsustainable. Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy have already made it quietly clear to Andorra, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco and Switzerland that things have to change. The G20 is going to apply significant pressure on the British government, for instance, over the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, Gibraltar and the British Virgin Islands.

  Much of the solution is not overly complex. Were governments to deduct standard rate taxes from all transfers to accounts in tax havens, they would effectively wipe out such havens and their hedge funds."

  Are the Irish getting it?

• Barclays battles to convince doubters | – It will take a lot to convince me

  I simply don't believe they have the capital that they claim

  With the number of offshore subsidiaries they have the chance of them really assessing their risk is low

I last reviewed the Isle of Man’s subsidy from the UK as a tax haven in tax year 2004/05. Then I estimated it to be
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The Guardian concentrates today on UK companies tax dodging in Ireland. It will be a familiar theme to those who read this blog. And as
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According to a press release in my inbox the Prime Minister said this morning: “I believe, as a society, we should support hard work, effort,
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Mike Devereux and Judith Freedman of the Oxford University Said Business School Centre for Business Taxation had an article in the Guardian this morning. I
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