Way back in 2005, John. Christensen and I wrote what was to become the foundational document of tax justice, which it still is in many ways. The publication was called 'Tax Us if You Can', and its aim was to set the agenda for necessary reforms if the world was to have a chance of delivering fair taxation.
There were twelve agendas, one of which was country-by-country reporting. This was on automatic information exchange:
Automatic information exchange
Information exchange between countries would go a long way towards tackling the culture of tax evasion and tax avoidance.
The European Union has made some progress with the European Savings Tax Directive, but this is restricted in scope and needs to be extended to cover all countries. It is therefore proposed that:
- All banks and other financial institutions should be required to disclose as a matter of legal duty all interest, dividends, royalties, licence fees and other income(including that from employment) that they pay to citizens of another country each year, with sufficient information being provided to ensure that the recipient can be identified.
- This information should be automatically exchanged between countries so that each country has access to data on the income paid to its citizens in other countries to ensure that it is properly taxed.
- If a country refuses to do this then it should be denied economic favours until compliance is forthcoming. These favours might be access to markets without tariffs, the right to receive tax information in exchange, the right for its citizens to receive income without being taxed, or the right to enjoy the benefits of double tax relief. In combination these measures would be sufficient to encourage most countries to comply.
These requests are not unreasonable. The principle of automatic information exchange is being established in the EU, albeit that it has a long way to go yet, and bilateral treaties to allow more limited information exchange are now becoming more commonplace, even with some tax havens.
Any move towards a global framework for tax cooperation should involve the extension of the principle of automatic information exchange to corporate bodies and trusts as well as to individuals since a lot of tax planning involves trusts and corporations. This is both desirable and practicable, and such measures will also assist in tackling organised crime, corruption, terrorism and money laundering.
Why does this matter? I noted this morning that Dan Neidle, who was a major opponent of the Tax Justice Network in the way that John and I ran it at that time, and pretty much everything we had to suggest because he was at the time a rising tax star in a major form of international lawyers, has this to say in the FT:
Less offshore secrecy is central to any boost from wealth taxes
That is followed by:
A UK transparency levy would kick-start global efforts to make it harder to conceal business ownership and beneficiaries
For the record, we tackled that issue too. But Dan wasn't with us back then as far as I can ever recall: he was the go-to man for those wanting to snipe at what we were tirelessly trying to achieve.
I like a reformed sinner, but Dan needs to acknowledge that much of what he now demands is based on the foundations laid by those whose work he always sought to criticise whenever he could.
I'm proud of what we achieved. There would be no discussion of wealth taxes now if we had not written 'Tax Us If You Can' and then delivered large chunks of what we demanded.
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Dan Neidle has much more knowledge and intellectual capability than you could ever hope for and his standing reflects that.
You do know I am the equal lonest running person in the top 50 of international tax influencers – being in tbhe lost for well over a decade?
You are talking utter nonsense….
So much influence yet no-one wants to employ you for your advice. What does that tell you?
You trolls really are stupid
I am overly fully employed right now
Aah, the smearing & trolling begin.
Take heart, Richard, the smears mean they are worried. You are cutting through. Because you are RIGHT. (& your detractors are scared).
There is a lot of trolling this morning
They’re all heading for the bin
I suspect Dan’s principled stance of refusing point blank to accept donations of any kind for his organisation goes some way to explaining why he is so highly regarded. Of course he has the advantage of having had a successful and lucrative career so he can afford to take this stance.
I take no corprpate donations
I do take a share of the money YouTube woukld otherwise earn from my content
Who pissed on your chips!!
The international tax landscape has changed in extraordinary ways since 2005.
Then, there was little international coordination, even in the EU, let alone the OECD. Perhaps people realised that transfer pricing needed agreement across borders, but apart for that, there was little else except a couple of EU directives and bilateral double tax treaties.
I don’t think we would have the Common Reporting Standard if it was not for FATCA. The latter exemplifies the US’s propensity to impose rules on others for its own benefit, but not accept those rules for itself. And we would not have FATCA without the whistleblowing on concealment of criminal behaviour by Swiss banks.
I don’t recall ever being opposed to AEOI or CbCR but I will admit to being sceptical that it would make much progress based on the previous sclerotic decades and national self-interest. Hats off to the OECD for delivering the BEPS project in a way that achieved political by-in. I would never have believed it would be possible. Perhaps it needed a post-2008 change of political view amid a scramble for tax revenues.
It remains to be see what impact the multilateral instrument and Pillar 2 and Pillar 1 may have. They have barely begun to take effect, but the ripples are already spreading out.
I think Pillar 1 and 2 are hard
But a few of us – the most notable being Pascal St Amans when at the OECD – and he and I got on well – massively changed the international tax environment from 2009 onwards – based on work John and I dod earlier
Rember the quote that ends, “but eventually, you win..”.
But usually someone else tries to nick the credit.
🙂
“There would be no discussion of wealth taxes now if we had not written ‘Tax Us If You Can'”
Really? I can recall discussion of wealth taxes in the UK back in the 1970s. Labour published a Green Paper on the topic in 1974.
Various European countries have introduced (and abandoned) wealth taxes throughout the 20th century.
Athens had a wealth tax in the 4th century BC!
Your criticisms of others not acknowledging your work would sound a bit better if you weren’t constantly trying to claim you had invented everything and never acknowledging that your work builds on work done before you.
People have said this to me for decades now
People who have achieved noithing, that is
We live in an age where you are not allowed to be proven right when pointing out wrongs.
But time reveals everything I find and then all you’ll get is a good kicking for being right.
That is the sick logic of any blind faith in any deeply flawed system.
Fuck them I say.
Way back when I was a member of Labour I persistently warned at CLP level that there was a campaign within the party to undermine Corbyn. I pointed out that some officials wouldn’t even mention him by name (‘the Office of the Leader’) and that whenever a trade unionist or lefty proposed or did anything it was diverted or killed by the hierarchy. I was called a sick paranoid person, in a constituency meeting, by several including one now nationally senior union official. It then graduated to being called an anti-semite (by pals of Ruth Smeeth). Along with others I said Starmer was a phoney and we were being had. I left. Nothing like your experience, but unbelievably unpleasant, and no amount of justification via history removes the painful memories. I find shouting “Fuck ’em” helps a bit. 🙂
I suspect it does
I have, of course, never used such language
Has anybody / everyone watched the Aljazeera documentary the Labour files
Some of it…
Not all
Yes. I have all the episodes recorded, as well as all their work on The Lobby.
I’ve also read the Labour Leaks report, the Forde Report, the EHRC report on the Labour Party, and experienced the “central control” exercised over candidate selection. Nothing Starmer/Reeves are doing now, surprises me, but that doesnt diminish my rage.