WASHINGTON, DC — As the Group of Twenty Finance Ministers meet tomorrow in St Andrews, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) urges leaders to acknowledge the devastating link between illicit financial flows from developing countries, secrecy jurisdictions (tax havens), and global poverty.
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.
WASHINGTON, DC – Global Financial Integrity (GFI) is calling on the UK Government to withdraw a report on illicit financial flows prepared by the Oxford Centre for Business Taxation from its Department for International Development (DFID) Web site due to extensive factual errors, omissions, and erroneous conclusions present in the document.
WASHINGTON, DC – The Task Force for Financial Integrity and Economic Development (Task Force) released a report today detailing a new system of accounting for multinational corporations (MNCs) designed to increase transparency and curtail tax evasion.
WASHINGTON, DC – International poverty eradication group Christian Aid is the newest member to join the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) announced today.
WASHINGTON, DC – Every year developing countries lose as much as $1 trillion due to illicit financial practices such as government corruption, tax evasion, and criminal activity. Today’s pledge from the G20 to increase funding for the IMF and for the developing world are laudable, but these efforts must also address illicit capital flight which remains the greatest impediment to economic development and poverty alleviation.
WASHINGTON, DC – Contrary to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s statement today that provisions in the G20 Communiqué denote the “start of the end” of tax havens, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) believes the Action Plan agreed to in London today “is more likely just the end of the beginning” of the effort to curtail the activities of jurisdictions that hide financial transactions behind a veil of secrecy.
Increasing transparency has become an uncertain element in the laundry list of reforms, regulations, agreements, and actions expected to be discussed when the G20 meets this week. Of the original three solutions proposed to be addressed by the G20 process: stimulus, regulation, and transparency, it is the first two: stimulus and regulation, which have emerged as dominant themes for Thursday’s meeting. This is a critical misstep as transparency represents the most reasonable and effective means for strengthening and revitalizing the global financial system.
The communiqué following the November 15th meeting of the G20 in Washington was bold and comprehensive, with “strengthening transparency and accountability” well argued and placed ahead of “enhancing sound regulation.” But transparency did not appear in the elements paper preceding the April 2nd meeting in London. Nor did it appear in U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s statement following the March 14th finance ministers meeting in Horsham. And it appeared only glancingly—“transparency of exposures to off-balance sheet vehicles”—in the general communiqué following that meeting.