Global Financial Integrity

 

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How Much Cash Leaves India?

Dev Kar

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.

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European Commission Moves to Improve Transparency, Good Governance

Monique Perry Danziger, +1 202 293 0740 ext. 222
Global Financial Integrity
Monique Perry Danziger, +1 202 293 0740 ext. 222

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.

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GFI Welcomes New Advisory Board Member

Monique Perry Danziger, +1 202 293 0740 ext. 222
Global Financial Integrity
Monique Perry Danziger, +1 202 293 0740 ext. 222

WASHINGTON, DC – Global Financial Integrity welcomes Krishen Mehta, as the newest member of its Advisory Board.  Mr. Mehta is a U.S. CPA and has been a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for almost 20 years.  From 1994 to 2008 Mr. Mehta worked closely with PwC clients in Japan, South Korea, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, and India.

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India Shows Us the Curse of ‘Black Money’

Raymond Baker

India’s opposition party leader L.K. Advani sparked a political conflagration with pre-election campaign remarks that India was losing tens of billions of dollars each year in illicit financial outflows, or “black money”. He asserted that the National Democratic Alliance would vigorously pursue recovery of these lost assets if voted into power. With the rolling election now in progress, the issue of India’s missing billions has grown progressively thornier, as both sides vie to take the moral high ground.

Whatever the outcome of the election, India’s problem has broader implications both for the developing world and for efforts by the Group of 20 developed and developing nations to craft an effective post-crisis economic plan for the global financial system.

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Illicit Financial Outflows from India $22 Billion-$27 Billion per Year

Monique Perry Danziger, +1 202 293 0740 ext. 222

WASHINGTON, DC – Global Financial Integrity issued a statement today on its 2008 report “Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2002-2006,” in response to growing interest in and citation of the report’s estimates of illicit capital flight out of India, which is ranked fifth out of 160 developing countries analyzed.

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Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs Joins Task Force

Monique Perry Danziger, +1 202 293 0740 ext. 222
Global Financial Integrity
Monique Perry Danziger, +1 202 293 0740 ext. 222

WASHINGTON, DC – The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the newest member to join the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development as a member of the Task Force Partnership Panel, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) announced today.

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On Tax Day a Look Back, and What the Future Holds for Tax Dodgers and Banking Secrecy

Monique Perry Danziger, +1 202 293 0740 ext. 222
Global Financial Integrity
Monique Perry Danziger, +1 202 293 0740 ext. 222

Official Statement from GFI

WASHINGTON, DC – This time last year the German government was pursuing a campaign to obtain information on 900 of its citizens whose names appeared on a list of secret accounts at Liechtenstein’s LGT bank.  Meanwhile, presidential hopeful and then-Senator Barack Obama was pledging to crackdown on tax havens and tax evaders if elected president.  The world economy was still in one piece and the Dow was above 10,000.

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Is the Sun Setting on Tax Dodgers?

Tom Cardamone

Just before tax day, here is a depressing number: $356 billion. That is the Congressional Budget Office’s new calculation for how much the financial bailout will cost taxpayers, nearly twice the prior estimate.

Who won’t be helping foot the TARP bill? Tax evaders – but they might not get away with it for long.

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