Thursday, February 24, 2011

Links Feb 24

UK Uncut is standing up for women by "bailing in" to the banks The Guardian
Feb 24 - UK Uncut actions will hit RBS branches across the country this coming weekend. A protestor speaks out on how women will bear the brunt of cuts - "I am in the process of organising a UK Uncut action ... against the unnecessary austerity cuts that will push women's rights back a generation." Lives may be lost as a result of cuts.


See also RBS bankers get £950m in bonuses despite £1.1bn loss The Guardian Feb 24 - Bailed-out bank increases part of revenue paid to bankers. --- And RBS had £25billion stashed in offshore havens depriving taxman of up to £500million Daily Mail Mar 13, 2009.


Banker bashing may cost UK £ 20bn, says Boris Johnson aide
The Guardian
Feb 24 - Hat tip Scott Klinger of Wealth for the Common Good. Scott observes: "Doesn't this make the connection that the tax haven network, the superhighway of capital, is central to the greedy pay of bankers? We want to control CEO pay and promote social equality, we have to deal with tax havens. It also seemed interesting that the argument in the article points to how much taxes are paid. I wonder how much is evaded as their vapor trail of money circles the globe."

Switzerland freezes Gaddafi Assets swissinfo
Feb 24 - Switzerland announces freezing any assets belonging to Libyan leader Gaddafi and his entourage.

Money-laundering: dictators are the small fry Treasure Islands
Feb 24 - Nick Shaxson observes how the big money is widely dispersed throughout the membership of power structures and elites - especially in the upper echelons.

See also:
Don't make it easier for dictators to steal Financial Times
Feb 23 - Anthea Lawson of Global Witness writes on truth and reality of laundering proceeds of grand scale corruption, and
warns that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) wants to remove officials’ “family members and associates” from the list of those on whom banks must perform extra checks.
As a side note - it is interesting that a Barclays Wealth sponsored ad appears next to the online FT article. Barclays is exposed by Global Witness as having laundered proceeds of kleptocrats from Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria - see Undue Diligence: How Banks Do Business with Corrupt Regimes and International Thief Thief: How British Banks are Complicit in Nigerian Corruption.

Looking dictators in the pocketbook
The Washington Post
Feb 19 - "Shouldn't governments committed to promoting democracy and transparency try to identify and freeze dictators' dirty money while they are still in power, when it might change their behavior? Or are asset seizures merely a departure tax that fallen autocrats pay as they run out the door?" Hat tip Nicole Tichon.

Pakistan - Lost revenue: 'Tax evasion costs exchequer Rs1.27tr'
The Express Tribune
Feb 24 - In Islamabad: 'For every Rs100 collected by the Federal Board of Revenue in taxes, it misses another Rs79 due to tax evasion', said Salman Siddiqui, chairman of the FBR, while testifying before the Senate Committee on Finance and Revenue on Wednesday. A crackdown is expected. Hat tip Offshore Watch.

U.S. Accuses Four Bankers Connected to Credit Suisse of Helping Americans Evade Taxes
New York Times
Feb 23 - Credit Suisse is coming under heightened scrutiny of authorities in the United States and Germany over its sale of private banking services that enable tax evasion. The indictment said that the four bankers also worked with three other banks to conceal the assets of wealthy Americans.

Feuding Irish Parties unite to Keep Viagra in EU Tax Fight
Bloomberg Businessweek
Feb 24 - Standing up to Germany and France over a corporate tax rate they say is vital to reviving the country’s battered economy, Ireland's politicians continue to try to stiff the regular EU taxpayer. However, as Angela Merkel observed: "The corporate tax rate led to 'misallocations' that helped cause the Irish banking crisis. While EU countries should set their own rates, they should be limited to a certain range', she told an audience in Freiburg, Germany, yesterday after an economic-policy speech."

Occupy Monaco
Twitpic
Feb 11 - A flyer - on tax havens being responsible for poverty. See also earlier TJN blogs here and here.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Boris Johnson at Davos: "What motivates you?" "I want to get everyone here to understand London is the greatest financial city in the world"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmY7C8_kE0A

1:45 am  

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