Transparency First - link

We recently blogged about an important article by Raymond Baker in The American Interest. We now have a link - it's here.

We also have a link to TJN's article, Measuring Secrecy, about our Financial Secrecy Index, and an important article by GFI's Heather Lowe, which describes the current state of play, principally in the United States, with respect to legislative efforts to get a better grip on the problems of corporate opacity and secrecy jurisdictions. It takes a look at moves by jurisdictions such as Hong Kong to allow corporations to be set up in minutes, and whose directors don't even have to be human beings: they can be other companies that in turn have other companies or agents as directors.

"The risk here is that a completely anonymous company can be set up in Hong Kong in a matter of minutes, a bank account can be set up in the name of that anonymous company, and the real flesh-and-blood beneficial owners of the company can transfer their tax evading, human trafficking, drug-related and other illicit proceeds to that Hong Kong account in less than a day."

It also examines the Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act, the the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA Act (which we've explored in detail ourselves,) and the older Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, the The Energy Security Through Transparency Act, and more.