Press releases

Deportations of refugees and migrants from Greece to Turkey must be halted immediately and people wanting to seek asylum should not be kept in detention, said Oxfam, Norwegian Refugee Council and Solidarity Now today in Greece. 

“Today’s so-called ‘hammer blow’ against tax cheats misses. If the proposed registry of beneficial owners of companies and trusts is hidden from the public, how can we know who is hiding their profits and fortunes and trying to avoid paying their fair share?" said Susana Ruiz, Oxfam's tax policy expert.

“It’s great to hear tough talk from both Jim Kim and Christine Lagarde on ending tax havens. We’ve seen this happen time and time again: when the richest fail to pay their fair share, the budgets for education, health, and other social services that the poorest depend on, are the first to get slashed," said Chris Stalker, acting head of Oxfam International's Washington office.

The 50 biggest US companies have more than a trillion dollars hidden offshore according to a new report published by Oxfam today. This is more than the entire GDP of countries such as Spain, Mexico or Australia.

Development aid has reached an all-time high, but with 900 million people still living in extreme poverty much more needs to be done, says Oxfam.

“In the Inspection Panel's findings, the Bank is still repeatedly failing to take the most basic steps needed to avoid harm. Steps like counting how many people are affected, or making information available in local languages are still neglected," said Kate Geary, Oxfam's land rights expert.

Following the abuses revealed in the Panama Papers, world leaders attending the Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund this week must seize the moment to take decisive action and help end the era of tax havens, said Oxfam today.

The European Commission has missed yet another chance to effectively end tax havens. Today’s tax transparency proposal is not sufficiently ambitious and too limited in its scope for that task.

Fifty one of the 68 companies that were lent money by the World Bank’s private lending arm in 2015 to finance investments in sub-Saharan Africa use tax havens, Oxfam revealed today.

New proposals from the European Commission on migration are a first step toward creating safe and legal routes for people on the move, says Oxfam.