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	Corporate tax avoidance cost Governments billions in lost revenues by Access Info Europe, ICIJ, agencies International Consortium of Investigative Journalists   April 2016   It’s none of your business – Report on Europe’s Closed Company Registers   In the wake of the massive Panama Papers scandal, Access Info Europe and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) have released a report showing that in most European jurisdictions data on company ownership is almost impossible for the public to obtain.   For an investigative journalist tracking down money laundering or organised crime, the main obstacle to accessing company registration information in Europe is financial: the register can be obtained for prices ranging from €75,000 in the Netherlands to € 286,000 in Estonia; single record costs range from €2.33 in France to €767.00 in Russia.   This situation endures in spite of repeated promises in fora such as the G7, G20 and Open Government Partnership to open up company data. Of 32 countries surveyed, the only two exceptions are the UK, which has a fully open company register available for download since just since June 2015, and Denmark, where the register may be accessed by those with a Danish Electronic ID. Not one of the remaining 30 countries provides free of charge bulk access to registers.   “The Panama papers investigation shows the immense power of transparency allied to rigorous investigative journalism. Making company registers accessible – at low or no cost – would be a great way to build on that success. It’s time promises on open data were kept, and governments showed that their rhetoric can be matched by action,” stated Drew Sullivan and Paul Radu, co-founders of the OCCRP.   The report It’s none of your business! identifies a total of 10 obstacles to accessing company register data. Another significant obstacle is that most countries don’t permit searches by the name of the company owner. Only Sweden, Ukraine and the UK offer free record-by-record searches by name.   “European governments are complicit in blocking investigative journalists in their work uncovering criminal activities, money laundering, and tax evasion,” stated Helen Darbishire, Executive Director of Access Info Europe.   “The reality is a seriously skewed playing field, with company ownership data shielded from public view in Europe. Access is only for those with the ability to pay – law firms, financial businesses, and the like – the kinds of people the Panama Papers have shown to be abusing the system,” added Darbishire.   http://www.access-info.org/company-register-transparency   12 April 2016   EU tax plans will allow multinationals to continue dodgy business as usual. (Christian Aid   European Union plans to force multinationals to reveal more about their financial affairs will do little to stop firms’ rampant tax abuse, Christian Aid says today.   “The Commission plans will allow multinationals to hide large parts of their global affairs from public scrutiny, which is a recipe for dodgy business as usual,” said Toby Quantrill, the charity’s tax justice expert.   The EU plans will require large multinationals to reveal a range of information, broken down by country, about their EU operations and also any operations in an (as yet unspecified) list of non-EU countries that the EU deems tax havens. Firms will have to reveal only aggregate figures for the rest of the world.   “Unless companies have to report on their activities in all the countries where they operate, they could continue to dodge tax on a massive scale, using the places still hidden from view,” added Mr Quantrill, Christian Aid’s Principal Adviser on Economic Justice.   “The Panama Papers are a graphic reminder of what happens when the powerful can hide: people and companies do things they would never have done in public.   “The European Commission should learn this lesson and revise its plans immediately, to ensure multinationals reveal what they are up to in all the countries where they operate, not just for some.”   Mr Quantrill added: “Under these plans, companies will have to make ‘public but not global’ reports within the EU, while the OECD and G20, meanwhile, require multinational companies to file ''global but not public'' reports. This is an unnecessary mess, not least for multinationals themselves.   “Importantly, these new EU reports will have little value to poor countries, which still will not find out what multinationals are up to. Yet they suffer worst from tax dodging. People living in poverty pay the highest price for multinationals’ cheating and are in the most need of funding for public services that tax dodging restricts.”   The new EU proposals are based on a standard called country-by-country reporting. Tax justice campaigners have used ‘country-by-country reporting’ to describe reports revealing details of multinationals’ activities in every country in which they operate. Such details include taxes paid, profits made, number of people employed and turnover.   Campaigners including Christian Aid have backed country-by-country reporting because it can help tax authorities and others to identify suspicious patterns which may indicate tax avoidance or evasion and which warrant further investigation.   However unless multinationals have to make such reports for every country where they operate, the reports lose much of their power.   Commenting on EU proposals to require multinationals to report on their activities within a set of blacklisted countries outside of the EU, Mr Quantrill added: “Previous EU attempts to define blacklists have failed and hard to see how this one will be different. Will the US or Switzerland be on the list this time?   “The limited picture provided by the approach proposed could increase the risk of misinterpretation. We really need to see the whole picture.   April 2016   The European Commission''s attempt to crack down on corporate tax evasion "is a smokescreen that will not stop multinationals dodging their taxes," says the UK-based social justice organization War on Want.   The proposal put forth by the Commission would require large companies—those whose annual revenue exceeds €750 million ($856 million)—to publicly disclose tax and financial data. The plan was reportedly "toughened up" in the wake of last week''s Panama Papers revelations.   Koen Roovers, lead EU advocate for the Financial Transparency Coalition, a network of civil groups and governments working to reform financial systems, criticized the plan as "a half-hearted hybrid that would keep most of the world in the dark."   Tax justice campaigners say the proposal''s limited scope represents yet another missed opportunity to effectively end tax havens.   For one thing, "the Commission''s proposal only requires reports for EU member states and countries on what is likely to be an arbitrary list of tax havens," said Oxfam''s EU tax policy advisor, Aurore Chardonnet, on Tuesday.   "The Commission criteria to list tax havens are already absolutely vague," she explained, "and we also expect EU member states to delay or oppose the process of compiling an official EU list."   ActionAid''s EU tax advocacy officer, Kasia Szeniawska, echoed that charge, saying the "yet-to-be-agreed list of tax havens is likely to be selective and highly politicized."   It is unclear if one of the world''s worst tax havens, the United States, will make the list.   Szeniawska said, "citizens, journalists and campaign groups won’t get the information they need to scrutinize multinationals'' global tax affairs, and there’s no assurance that the world’s poorest countries will get the information either."   Owen Espley, tax campaigner at War on Want, between 85-90 percent of the world''s corporations will not have to report under the proposal. Indeed, said Szeniawska, the deal "lets off the hook the vast majority of multinational companies by setting a very high threshold for companies covered by the requirement."   Political economist Richard Murphy, who calls himself "the person who created the idea of country-by-country reporting," says what the Commission is suggesting is "nothing like" the system for which he advocates. In fact, Murphy said, this "disaster in the making...is, I suspect, designed to undermine the credibility of country-by-country reporting."   In a blog post, he further enumerated the plan''s failings, including:   We will have no data on developing countries who are meant to benefit from this disclosure; The USA has killed all disclosure for anywhere outside the EU; The EU has a very poor track recording in preparing tax haven lists If a tax haven is part of a larger state – as Gibraltar is part of the UK for EU purposes – then it appears data will not need to be disclosed for it. This will also apply in the Netherlands; Most tax haven data will not be disclosed under these rules; We will simply not be able to use this data to extract useful data from the accounts – and we will not even know if the information we will get will usefully reconcile with those accounts.   "The Commission has once more taken the side of tax dodging multinationals against the European public," said War on Want''s Espley. "The proposal is a recipe for more austerity, cuts to public services and tax competition, and leaves no seat at the table for southern countries, for whom genuine country-by-country reporting could help to collect taxes to fund essential public services."   http://financialtransparency.org/commissions-selective-tax-transparency-proposal-leaves-world-dark/ http://www.christianaid.org.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/april_2016/eu-tax-plans-will-allow-multinationals-to-continue-dodgy-business-as-usual.aspx http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/04/12/the-eu-is-not-demanding-country-by-country-reporting-today-so-dont-believe-it-when-it-says-it-is/   * 13.4.2016   Panama Papers: global tax officials to launch unprecedented inquiry   Tax investigators from 28 countries will meet in Paris on Wednesday to launch an unprecedented international inquiry following the publication of the Panama Papers.   Senior officials from tax authorities around the world have said they intend to work together to analyse information revealed by the documents, which have provoked international concern over the offshore industry.   Investigations have been launched in a number of countries over the past week, but the Paris meeting will be an attempt to develop a global strategy to crack down on offenders.   The new approach is being led by the Joint International Tax Shelter Information and Collaboration (Jitsic-OECD) network.   Jitsic’s chairman, Chris Jordan, has previously spoken of establishing a “global mindset for tackling tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance”. Jordan, who is Australia’s tax commissioner, has previously set up a six-country collaboration to investigate tech companies, including Apple. He now wants to develop a global approach to the exchange of information on tax collection.   “We’re basically trying to get the bigger picture,” Jordan told reporters, “It’s never been tried on this scale before. “A number of countries have got slices or pieces of the data and that’s been very useful, but really, the start of the conversation is to work out who’s got what, how we can pool that information and start to work together.”   Jordan has emphasised the importance of speed, telling officials that he expects immediate information exchange, rather than the traditionally slow approach.   The meeting in Paris will be chaired by the Australian tax office’s head of international tax, Mark Konza.   * Unfortunately the OECD, the G20, the UN Global Compact and the Australian Tax Office have talked up their ineffective results for years.   Just last week, for example the Australian Deputy Tax Commissioner highlighted the ATO was seeking some $400 million in lost revenues, when billions annually are lost through tax evasion and highly dubious tax minimalization schemes in Australia; with some estimates suggesting the Australia Government has lost well over a $100-150 billion in tax revenues in the last decade alone.   Tax officals cite inadequate legislation, members of parliament and Government officals claim to be addressing the effective theft of public revenues whilst keeping an eye on their future careers as corporate lobbyists.   Last year, 1 third of all Australian companies paid no tax, another third paid significantly reduced tax, whilst working employees had 30% tax automatically deducted from their wages. In a Senate Committee it was revealed that leading Australian companies channelled some $60 billion through Singapore last year alone to minimize their taxes. High income Australians also operate a variety of legal schemes involving trusts, superannuation tax concession arrangments, and tax deductible negative gearing on their property investments to reduce their taxable incomes, apart from offshoring their tax arrangements in other juridictions.   Business groups are significant political donors to the major political parties. Australian business groups are currently lobbying to reduce company tax rates, as are many other corporate business groups globally, effectively reducing Government revenues to fund public services. These same groups are loud advocates for privatizations, Public Private Partnerships, reducing the size of Government programs and advancing austerity measures, whilst gaming the system in their own self interest. http://nb.tai.org.au/fairtaxreform   Similar realities exist in the UK regarding Mr. Osborne''s proposed minimalist tax revenue gathering measures. In the U.S. business leaders proudly boast of their tax avoidance success, and openly denigrate international accountability mechanisms. U.S. corporations currently have 2 trillion dollars parked offshore in other tax juridictions.   Authoritarian states are loathe to offer transparency or accountability deemed a threat to their political power. Wealthy elites, multinationals and business interests wield significant political power on Governments around the world.   Expect a lot of tough talk from Tax and Government officals and from the OECD over the latest revelations from just 1 tax firm. Grandstanding over minimalist changes and achievements and the ongoing loss of hundreds of billions of potential Government tax revenues to fund public services each year.   A significant part of the problem is the corporate and regulatory capture of parliaments and international mechanisms by multinational corporations, business lobbyists and high wealth individuals, most notably in the U.S. and U.K.   Mar. 2016   Ministers agree to new EU rule to further actions to curb corporate tax dodging, by Hamish Boland-Rudder.   Multinational corporations operating in Europe will be required to report their earnings and taxes on a country-by-country basis after the continent''s finance ministers agreed to new tax transparency measures this week.   Finance ministers from the European Union’s 28 member states met in Brussels on Tuesday, where they approved a new directive on the exchange of corporate tax-related information. The new rules are aimed at curbing profit shifting and corporate tax avoidance by large multinational companies.   The initiative is driven by a string of recent corporate tax scandals in Europe, including ICIJ’s Luxembourg Leaks investigation which revealed how hundreds of the world’s biggest companies were using secret agreements with Luxembourg to cut their tax bills by billions. The European Commission estimates that Europe’s governments lose 70 billion euros to corporate tax avoidance each year.   The new rules are expected to be adopted by June, and will be applied to foreign companies with European subsidiaries from 2017. Under the rules, corporations will be required to report revenues, profits, taxes and the number of employees in all European countries where they operate.   Transparency campaigners called on the EU to go a step further, and make this information available to the public.   It comes at a time of increasing tensions between Europe, the United States and multinational companies looking to reduce their tax bills.   Following a January ruling by the European Commission forcing Belgium to reclaim about $765 million from 35 multinational companies, some corporations were reportedly considering shifting their operations out of the country.   In recent months the U.S. has criticized Europe’s tax investigations as unfairly targeting American companies and indicated that it is considering retaliatory measures against European companies.   http://www.icij.org/blog Visit the related web page
	German police reject Breitbart story of mob setting fire to Dortmund church by Agence France-Presse in Berlin, agencies Germany   German media and politicians have warned against an election-year spike in fake news after the rightwing website Breitbart claimed a mob chanting “Allahu Akbar” had set fire to a church in the city of Dortmund on New Year’s Eve.   After the report by the US site was widely shared on social media, the city’s police clarified that no “extraordinary or spectacular” incidents had marred the festivities.   The local newspaper, Ruhr Nachrichten, said elements of its online reporting on New Year’s Eve had been distorted by Breitbart to produce “fake news, hate and propaganda”.   The justice minister of Hesse state, Eva Kühne-Hörmann, said that “the danger is that these stories spread with incredible speed and take on lives of their own”.   Tens of thousands clicked and shared the Breitbart story with the headline “Revealed: 1,000-man mob attack police, set Germany’s oldest church alight on New Year’s Eve”.   It said the men had “chanted Allahu Akbar (God is greatest), launched fireworks at police and set fire to a historic church”, while also massing “around the flag of al-Qaida and Islamic State collaborators the Free Syrian Army.”   The local newspaper said Breitbart had combined and exaggerated unconnected incidents to create a picture of chaos and of foreigners promoting terrorism.   Stray fireworks did start a small blaze, but only on netting covering scaffolding on the church and it was put out after about 12 minutes, the paper reported. The roof was not on fire and the church is not Germany’s oldest.   Dortmund police on Thursday said its officers had handled 185 missions that night, sharply down from 421 the previous year. The force’s leader judged the night as “rather average to quiet”, in part thanks to a large police presence.   The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily said Breitbart had used exaggerations and factual errors to create “an image of chaotic civil war-like conditions in Germany, caused by Islamist aggressors”.   It said the article “may be a foretaste” of what is to come before parliamentary elections expected in September as some websites spread “misinformation and distortion in order to diminish trust in established institutions”.   Justice minister Heiko Maas warned in mid-December that Germany would use its laws against deliberate disinformation and that freedom of expression did not protect “slander and defamation”.   Bild, Germany’s top-selling daily, also predicted trouble ahead – pointing to the fact that Breitbart’s former editor Steve Bannon had been appointed as US president-elect Donald Trump’s chief strategist.   It warned that Breitbart – which plans to launch German and French language sites – could seek to “aggravate the tense political climate in Germany”.   Dec. 2016   German companies pull advertising from US website Breitbart. (AP)   Several large German companies, including carmaker BMW, have pulled their ads from U.S.-based news and opinion website Breitbart due to concerns about its content, following a similar move by cereal maker Kellogg''s.   The German boycott was spurred by a social media campaign using the hashtag #KeinGeldFuerRechts , which translates as "No Money for the Right." The campaign urges companies to stop paying for ads on sites considered to promote racist and nationalist ideas.   Deutsche Telekom said it regretted advertising on Breitbart, saying the ads hadn''t been placed there intentionally and it would blacklist the site from future campaigns. The telecoms giant said it "absolutely doesn''t tolerate discriminatory actions or statements."   Supermarket group REWE, automaker BMW, Telefonica Deutschland, which is the mobile operator of O2, and restaurant chain Vapiano also told The Associated Press that they had stopped advertising on Breitbart and distanced themselves from the site.   "The positions held by Breitbart.com contrast with Vapiano''s values, such as openness and tolerance," the company said.   Breitbart reportedly plans to open sites in France and Germany soon. Germany, which is expected to hold a general election in September, introduced restrictions on free speech after World War II to prevent a revival of Nazi ideology.   http://business-humanrights.org/en/companies-denounce-rightwing-us-website-breitbart-after-criticism http://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/alternative-right http://www.salon.com/2017/01/30/trumps-rasputin-seizes-the-moment-a-week-of-chaos-may-suit-steve-bannons-master-plan/ http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/business/media/stephen-bannon-trump-news-media.html http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/what-it-means-to-live-in-a-breitbart-nation http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/jeff-sessions-close-relationship-with-media-bright-spot-breitbart/ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/steve-bannon-to-help-trump-bring-white-nationalism-misogyny-and-anti-semitism-to-the-white-house/ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/top-trump-adviser-steve-bannon-cited-racist-anti-immigrant-book-in-radio-appearance/ http://billmoyers.com/story/america-meet-nigel-farage/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/bannons-war/ http://wapo.st/2rpD52O http://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/ethics-in-the-news Visit the related web page
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