Global Financial Integrity
WASHINGTON, DC – Dev Kar, Lead Economist for Global Financial Integrity (GFI) and author of the highly-publicized GFI report “Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2002-2006,” will visit Mumbai, Pune, Jamshedpur, Calcutta, and Delhi over the course of a three-week tour of India starting Monday, June 1st.
WASHINGTON, DC – Global Financial Integrity (GFI) Director Raymond Baker will testify before the U.S. House of Representatives as part of a hearing on capital loss, corruption and the role of Western financial institutions.
Global Financial Integrity
A ‘One-Stop Hub’ for Information and Resources on Economic Transparency
WASHINGTON, DC – The Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development has launched FinancialTaskForce.org to serve as a “one-stop hub” for the Task Force and its work on increasing transparency and accountability in the global financial system, announced Task Force officiating member Global Financial Integrity (GFI) today.
Global Financial Integrity
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.
Global Financial Integrity
WASHINGTON, DC – Global Financial Integrity (GFI) applauds the Obama Administration’s efforts to fix the broken tax system that enables corporations to game the system to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
Economists use two basic models to estimate illicit financial flows (IFFs), also known as illegal capital flight. According to the first method, if the source of funds (borrowing abroad and foreign direct investment) is higher than recorded use, the excess must have leaked out as unrecorded transactions and are therefore illicit by definition. The second method tracks the over-invoicing of imports and under-invoicing of exports by domestic residents in order to capture their illicit holdings of foreign currency abroad. The Global Financial Integrity (GFI) study estimated that black money to the tune of $22.7-$27.3 billion left India annually during 2002-2006.
That issue, of black money leaving India, and the total stock of slush funds held abroad by Indians, has become a hot-button political issue. Unfortunately, in the political fray a number of commentators have misinterpreted the GFI report and have confused the issues.
It Is Difficult to Adequately Track Illicit Money Leaving the Country. But Flows Are Likely to Be Immense
Global Financial Integrity (GFI) recently published a report titled Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2002-2006 as part of a project financed by the Ford Foundation. This report, which was well received by academia, governments and non-governmental organizations, came to be widely discussed in the Indian media. The report found that black money to the tune of $22.7-27.3 billion a year has been leaving India over the five-year period, 2002-2006. It should be noted that even the upper range of GFI’s estimates likely understates the outflow of black money from India. After all, economic models cannot capture all the channels through which money can be transferred illegally out of a country. A few examples will suffice. It is well known that illicit hawala transactions are an important way by which residents can swap the rupee for foreign exchange. A US state department report estimates that hawala transactions in India range between $13 billion and $17 billion annually, and present a security threat to the country. Neither can economic models capture the outflow of black money as in a courier’s cross-border transfer of foreign exchange in a suitcase.
Global Financial Integrity
WASHINGTON, DC – Global Financial Integrity (GFI) applauds the European Commission’s release of recommendations for actions EU Member States should take to promote “good governance” in tax assessment and collection, such as increasing transparency. Released today, the Commission’s recommendations build on existing EU policy for good governance and the recent G20 conclusions concerning uncooperative tax jurisdictions.
