Christine Clough, PMP
Illicit financial flows (IFFs) from developing and emerging economies kept pace at nearly US$1 trillion in 2014, according to a study released today by Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington, DC-based research and advisory organization. The report pegs illicit financial outflows at 4.2-6.6 percent of developing country total trade in 2014, the last year for which comprehensive data are available.
At a time when Members of Congress need more data to inform their important deliberations on effective tax policy reform, two bills introduced this week in the House and the Senate seek to provide lawmakers with previously unreported data from multinational corporations, often referred to as “country-by-country reporting” information.
Globally the business of transnational crime is valued at an average of $1.6 trillion to $2.2 trillion annually, according to a new report released by Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington DC-based research and advisory organization. Titled “Transnational Crime and the Developing World,” the study highlights that the combination of high profits and low risks for perpetrators of transnational crime and the support of a global shadow financial system perpetuate and drive these abuses.
As national leaders meet at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa this week, a group of civil society experts has issued a set of recommendations to address illicit financial flows (IFFs), an issue of critical importance to regional development. Titled Accelerating the IFF Agenda for African Countries (the Accelerated IFF Agenda), the purpose of the document is to highlight for African leaders fourteen steps that can be taken to jumpstart efforts to address IFFs. Among the recommendations are suggestions to establish a multi-agency approach to fight IFFs, to collect information to identify corporate ownership, and certain tax-related measures.
Global Financial Integrity (GFI), the Centre for Applied Research at the Norwegian School of Economics and a team of global experts have released a study showing that since 1980 developing countries lost US$16.3 trillion dollars through broad leakages in the balance of payments, trade misinvoicing, and recorded financial transfers. These resources represent immense social costs that have been borne by the citizens of developing countries around the globe. Funding for the report was provided by the Research Council of Norway, and research assistance was provided by economists in Brazil, India, and Nigeria.
Today Global Financial Integrity (GFI) launches its new database tool—GFTrade—with real-time price analyses to measure trade misinvoicing risks for 80,000 goods categories. Trade misinvoicing accounts for hundreds of billions in illicit financial flows from developing countries, and in curtailing these outflows, GFTrade would generate millions of dollars in additional domestic revenue.
As the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flore (CITES) gathers in Johannesburg for its 17th Conference of the Parties, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) releases new estimates on the link between wildlife trafficking and the global shadow financial system. From a forthcoming report, to be published in November 2016, GFI finds that wildlife trafficking generates an estimated US$5 to $23 billion in revenues each year.
Heather Lowe, +1 202 293 0740 ext. 228
“Today, neither legislators nor investors have any reliable information about multinationals’ profit shifting practices apart from the result of them—less revenue in the U.S. treasury and greater risk of enforcement actions worth billions of dollars,” commented Heather Lowe, Legal Counsel and Director of Government Affairs at Global Financial Integrity.
