I liked this comment in the Economist yesterday in an article discussing the problems with automatic information exchange from tax havens under the OECD's proposed Common Reporting Standard (CRS):
The OECD hopes that upright financial firms will turn in rivals that abet tax evasion once the CRS kicks in, if only to stop them stealing business. Tax campaigners are another source of intelligence. A report published last year by the Tax Justice Network, whose membership includes smart tax lawyers with a conscience (supply your own punchline), identified more than 30 loopholes and exemptions in the CRS.
They're right. It is civil society and not tax academia or the professions that is providing the alternative thinking and critiques on issues such as this. Which is a pretty damning indictment of both tax lawyers and accountants and tax research in universities.
The TJN analysis is here.
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Couldn’t agree more. Where is the accountancy profession’s lead on this. I am both a supporter of the civil society campaigns and an ashamed chartered accountant.
Join the club of ashamed accountants! There are a few of us here
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/pra/Pages/publications/cp/2015/cp815.aspx
Not strictly relevant, but a step in right direction?
Yes, potentially
Mr Murphy,
The single most, and probably terminal loophole in the OECD’s CRS is that the United States will not take part in it. The Republican leadership in Congress is firmly opposed to it, and in fact also has included in its 2016 platform a repeal of FATCA altogether (this is in fairness not particularly credible).
Automatic information exchange has not resolved anything. It has simply pushed the problem to a location, the United States, which is completely insensitive to any form of international pressure whatsoever, and will act in its sole national interest.
Respectfully.
MR
For once, we at least in part, agree