Having spent two, successful days at the World Bank attention shifts a few blocks today to the 2009 Annual Conference of the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development will take place this week in Washington, DC (16th and 17th September 2009). Venue: Ambassador Room, Hilton Embassy Row Hotel.

I am delighted that Tax Research UK becomes a member of the Task Force in its own right this week. It’s a considerable honour to join the likes of Christian Aid, Global Witness, Transparency International, Tax Justice Network and others as members of this organisation that has one goal, which is to create a world financial system that delivers for the poorest on this globe. The work is backed by the Norwegian government.

The conference programme, below, shows the support this issue has generated and will highlight how a common approach to greater financial transparency can benefit rich and poor nations alike.

Speakers will address country-by-country reporting of income and tax paid by multinational corporations, listing beneficial ownership of subsidiaries, automatic exchange of tax information between governments, curtailing trade mispricing, harmonizing predicate crimes for money laundering charges among FATF countries, and other issues of transparency that continue to hamper development in poor nations. Among the list of leading experts slated to speak are U.S. Senator Carl Levin and scholars Dr. Francis Fukuyama and Dr. Paul Collier. Senator John Kerry is amongst the key notes speakers.
These are details of key sessions:

Panel 1 - Transfer Pricing
Alex Cobham, Christian Aid, Chair
Jack Blum, Chairman, Tax Justice Network
Krishen Mehta, Director, Asia Initiatives
Raymond Baker, Director, Global Financial Integrity, Center for International Policy

Horizons 1 — Magnitudes and Directions
James Boyce, Director, Program on Development, Peacebuilding, and the Environment,
Political Economy Research Institute, & Professor, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Chair
Dev Kar, Lead Economist, Global Financial Integrity, Center for International Policy

Keynote — The Honorable John Kerry, United States Senator

Panel 2 — Automatic Exchange
John Christensen, Director, Tax Justice Network, Chair
David Spencer, Tax Justice Network
Martin Sullivan, Tax Analysts
Jonathan Winer, Senior Vice President, APCO Worldwide Inc

Horizons 2 — Norwegian Panel of Economists
Harald Tollan, Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation, Chair
Dr. Odd-Helge Fjeldstad, Research Director, Public Sector Reform, Chr. Michelsen Institute
Fridtjov Thorkildsen, Director, Governance and Anti-Corruption Unit, Norad

Panel 3 — Country-by-Country Reporting
Gavin Hayman, Campaigns Director, Global Witness, Chair
Richard Murphy, Tax Research LLP
Horacio Pe?±a, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Keynote — The Honorable Carl Levin, United States Senator

Francis Fukuyama, Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy & Director, International Development Program, The Paul H. Nitze
School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

Panel 4 — Beneficial Ownership
Charles Davidson, Publisher & CEO, The American Interest, Chair
Emery Kobor, Assistant Director, Strategic Policy Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, US Department of the Treasury
James McDonald, President, Rockefeller & Co., Inc.
Anthea Lawson, Global Witness

Horizons 3 — Asset Recovery
Lord Daniel Brennan, Counsel, Matrix Chambers, Chair
Adrian Fozzard, Coordinator, STAR Project, World Bank
Alan Bacarese, Basel Institute
Ken Hurwitz, Anticorruption Senior Legal Officer, Open Society Institute

Keynote — Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to the President & Senior Director for Relief, Stabilization, and Reconstruction, National Security Council

Panel 5 — Predicate Offenses
Fran?ßois Valerian, Head of Private Sector Programs, Transparency International, Chair
Heather Lowe, Legal Counsel & Director of Government Affairs, Global Financial Integrity
Chip Poncy, Director, Office of Terrorist Financing & Financial Crimes, US Department of the Treasury
Nick Podsiadly, U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary

Horizons 4 — Economists’ Advisory Council
Paul Collier, Director, Centre for the Study of African Economies, & Professor of Economics, Oxford University Department of Economics, Chair
Seeraj Mohamed, Director, Corporate Strategy and Industrial Development Research Programme (CSID), School of Economics and Business Sciences University of the Witwatersrand