OECD on tax havens, developing countries

TJN bloggers have all been travelling a lot in the past week, so we're now catching up with some stuff. Apologies for late postings. We would now like to highlight this interview a few days ago with Jeffrey Owens, head of tax at the OECD.

"Tax havens have a bigger impact on developing countries than on developed countries," Jeffrey Owens, director of the Centre for Tax Policy Administration at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, told Reuters.

"There is an enormous drainage of revenues to tax havens. This is equivalent to around 7 to 8 percent of gross domestic product for the African continent and a multiple of the aid it gets from developed countries."

The entire article is worth reading. Owens, at the recent Doha meeting (which we'll be blogging as time becomes available to us) at credited TJN with having done more than any other organisation in putting this dirty tax haven / tax competition on the global agenda.

We recently commented about the OECD, and how they can play a most positive role in pushing forwards TJN's agenda, but that their efforts have been stymied by malign interests. Read more here.