tax transparency

After almost five years of deadlock, EU governments in the Council finally backed new EU rules on corporate tax transparency today. The proposal requires multinationals to publicly report on what profits they make, how much tax they pay, and where they pay it.

It’s good to see the Commission continue their crackdown on tax avoidance by Europe’s largest companies, but actual reforms towards more tax transparency are needed, Oxfam said in reaction to a decision by the European Commission that declared illegal a tax deal of Luxembourg with the French company Engie.

A Luxembourg court today overturned the previous guilty verdict imposed on whistleblower Antoine Deltour, who exposed secret deals that enabled multinational companies to avoid paying billions of dollars in tax. Welcoming the decision, Oxfam said whistleblowers are not criminals and governments should do more to implement tax transparency.

Since 2015 all banks based in the European Union have been obliged to publicly report their profits and tax on a country-by-country basis. This report showcases research by Oxfam that uses this new transparency data in depth for the first time to illustrate the extent to which the top 20 EU banks are using tax havens.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development gives business a significant role to play in efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, based on its ability to invest and innovate. This paper explores ways in which companies can provide more meaningful contributions to governments’ commitments to reach the SDGs.

Collecting tax is one of the key means by which governments are able to address poverty. But big business is dodging tax on an industrial scale. This report exposes the world’s worst corporate tax havens and calls on governments to work together to put a stop to this race to the bottom.

More than 300 leading economists from 30 countries have today written to world leaders warning that there is no economic justification for allowing tax havens to continue, and urging them to bring an end to offshore financial secrecy. The letter comes ahead of the UK Government’s summit on offshore corruption in London on Thursday, which politicians from 40 countries as well as World Bank and IMF representatives are expected to attend.

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.

In an open letter, a large coalition of civil society organizations and trade unions, including Oxfam, is asking European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker for a more ambitious proposal on tax transparency.