Analysis
We can crack tax havens Open Now
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- Written by Richard Murphy
A couple of days ago II highliighted a report from Cayman about a meeting of offshore lawyers where it seemed there was widespread agreement that the system of tax information exchange agreements that the OECD, UK government and tax haven authorities say delivers secrecy in the murky world of secrecy jurisdictions really does not such thing.
Addicted to Tax Havens ...
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- Written by Nicolas Shaxson
ActionAid have produced another fine report, this time about the use of tax havens by multinational corporations listed on the FTSE 100. The statistics are staggering: for example more than half of the financial sector’s overseas subsidiaries are in tax havens. More precisely:
- The FTSE 100 largest groups registered on the London Stock Exchange comprise 34,216 subsidiary companies, joint ventures and associates.
- 38% (8,492) of their overseas companies are located in tax havens.
- 98 groups declared tax haven companies, with only two groups, Fresnillo and Hargreaves Landsdown, who did not.
- The banking sector makes heaviest use of tax havens, with a total of 1,649 tax haven companies between the ‘big four’ banks. They are by far the biggest users of the Cayman Islands, where Barclays alone has 174 companies.
- The biggest tax haven user overall is the advertising company WPP, which has 611 tax haven companies.
- The FTSE 100 companies make much more use of tax havens than their American equivalents.
- There are over 600 FTSE 100 subsidiary companies in Jersey (more than in the whole of China), 400 in the Cayman Islands and 300 in Luxembourg – all tiny tax havens.
Why We Need a Financial Transaction Tax
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- Written by Kavaljit Singh
Kavaljit Singh explains why India has changed its position on the FTT and how such a tax can serve as a first step towards building international cooperation on global financial reforms.
A social Investment Pact?
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A couple of months ago, three experts on social protection published a document titled ‘The EU needs a Social Investment Pact’.[i]
How to interpret these proposals?
On how the financial system strangles European economies
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Interview with Fernando Sanchez of Cemla (Center for Latinamerican monetary studies) in Mexico : on the links between the Dollar and the Euro and the dominance of neoliberalism and the financial sector:
Read more: On how the financial system strangles European economies
Will the Dollar be dethroned by the Euro?
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- Written by Zsolt Darvas - Bruegel
The US dollar still dominates global currency markets. It has appreciated sharply at the outbreak of the recent global financial crisis. This is remarkable, since risky American financial structures were the prime reason behind the crisis. The US economy accumulated large current account deficits before the crisis, which would have called for dollar depreciation. Also, the huge rise in the country's public debt, and the stalemate of its politics, should raise doubts about the prime role of the US dollar.
Ending Aid Dependency
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- Written by Action Aid
An interesting new report of Action Aid on how the aid dependency of poor countries is slowly declining and on how real aid can be effective.
How to Spend It?
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- Written by Eurodad
Boomerang Aid: How billions of development aid are diverted towards companies in the rich countries ...
Haiti: forced evictions of victims. And development?
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- Written by Justin Frewen
On the 12th of January 2010, Haiti was devastated by an earthquake which struck some 10 miles Southwest of the capital Port-au-Prince. Recording 7.0 on the Richter scale, it left 220,000 people dead, over 300,000 more injured. Haiti’s already inadequate infrastructure was also severely affected as the earthquake damaged or destroyed as many as 250,000 homes according to the Haitian government - leaving around 1.5 million people homeless – and 4,000 schools. Already one of the poorest countries in the world, the earthquake was a natural disaster that the country could well have done without.
Read more: Haiti: forced evictions of victims. And development?
Richistan, the class conflict and leftwing schizophrenia
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It is more than five years ago that German businessmen made a proposal to pay more taxes. They earned more than enough, so they said, and were willing to pay more than the German State was asking them. But as far as I know, the government didn’t listen. Or maybe they told the government not to listen. Who knows?
Read more: Richistan, the class conflict and leftwing schizophrenia
