GFI’s Heather Lowe appeared on a panel at the Newseum on May 26, 2015, discussing the impact of the LuxLeaks and SwissLeaks investigations by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The panel was sponsored by the Washington Foreign Law Society.
By Grace Zhao, June 18, 2014
Apple, Starbucks, and Fiat should prepare to pay their fair share of corporate taxes.
Last year, a U.S. Senate investigation accused Ireland of giving Apple special tax treatment. EU Antitrust Commissioner Joaquin Almunia has now gone further, initiating a probe of these large firms to determine whether the companies’ tax deals with Ireland, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg involve illegal state aid.
The investigations specifically examine the companies’ method of “transfer pricing”. Transfer pricing is simply the accounting practice by which one part of a multinational company charges another part for goods and services to distribute profits between jurisdictions. For large corporations such as Apple, Starbucks, and Fiat, the problem lies in the use of loopholes and creative interpretations of transfer pricing rules to artificially shift profits to countries where there are lower taxes or better tax breaks.
WASHINGTON, DC – According to a new analysis of financial jurisdictions prepared by UK-based civil society group Tax Justice Network, the state of Delaware is the most secretive financial jurisdiction in the world. Based on the laws and practices of 60 financial jurisdictions the Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) ranks jurisdictions according to their level of secrecy and the extent to which they cooperate with tax authorities in other countries.