Links Oct 22

Tax Challenges in Latin America TJN Latin America and Caribbean (In Spanish)
Oct 19 - Luis Moreno explains challenges, and points to the way forward - "Economic integration processes, and political and economic cooperation, can make the debate on fiscal policy acquire a proper regional and global dimension."

Stealing Africa Why Poverty?
Brilliant film trailer deals with Glencore and Zambia, trade mispricing and tax dodging. The full film will be broadcast around the world in November, as part of the major Why Poverty? series. Hat tip: Alex Cobham

See also:Will Africa ever benefit from its natural resources? BBC
Oct 15 - "So why have so many African countries failed to turn natural riches into benefits for the masses? Who is to blame for the foreign exploitation, and whose responsibility is it to put things right? What about possible solutions - renegotiation of contracts, better transparency mechanisms, higher taxation, resource nationalism?"

Country-by-country reporting for banking, construction and telecommunications would help to address corruption, tax evasion and other malpractice Eurodad
Oct 19 - "The European Parliaments Legal Affairs committee has voted for a requirement for country-by-country reporting of payments to governments in the banking, construction and telecommunications sectors. This is a crucial step that comes on top of the requirement for extractive and logging industries to report on a country-by-country and project-by-project basis."

Tax, social protection and development: European proposals paint only half the picture Eurodad
Oct 18 - "In its Communication on Social protection in European Union development cooperation, released last month, the European Commission (EC) emphasises the need for fair and efficient tax systems to support social protection schemes in partner countries, but misses a crucial part of the picture: preventing the enormous illicit financial flows that rob billions each year from the exchequers of those countries..."

Anger grows over large companies' tax bills as attention turns to eBay and Ikea Guardian
Oct 21 - "Pressure is mounting on large multinational companies to pay their fair share of tax following new revelations about the amount of tax paid by eBay and Ikea.The focus on the tax affairs of the internet auction house and the Swedish retailer comes amid increasing anger about Starbucks."

Indonesia - OECD Economic Survey OECD
This economic survey has a strong focus on improving the tax system. But there's something strange: the report says nothing about tax information exchange - it does not even mention the OECD's own information-on-request approach. Hat tip: Francis Weyzig.

Goldman Sachs 'muppet' trader says unsophisticated clients targeted Guardian
Oct 22 - "Greg Smith, the former Goldman Sachs employee who infamously quit Wall Street via a New York Times article in March, says the investment bank routinely took advantage of charities and pension funds in order to increase its profits." - Reporting on an interview on CBS News' 60 Minutes.

U.S.: Tax Cuts for Job Creators The New York Times
Oct 19 - Explaining that Mitt Romney's tax plans would reduce federal revenues by trillions of dollars, and noting that, crucially, "we have found no evidence that such cuts lead to substantially faster employment growth at the national, state or even ZIP-code level."

Income Inequality May Take Toll on Growth The New York Times
Oct 16 -  "“What worries me is the idea that we’re in a vicious cycle,” said Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics who has studied inequality extensively. “Increasing inequality means a weaker economy, which means increasing inequality, which means a weaker economy. That economic inequality feeds into political economy, so the ability to stabilize the economy gets weaker.”