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More Compromises for the Budget: Corporate Tax Deferral on Foreign Earnings
November 20th, 2013
The budget conference committee, which is currently charged with negotiating a compromise on the U.S. federal budget, has met publicly for a second time last week. The committee must deliver a report to Congress by December 15 and, to avert another shutdown, Congress must extend government funding by January 15. Leaders in the budget committee leaders have said they “won’t waste time debating the areas where they already know there’s no agreement, but will focus on where deals can be cut.” Some Senate Democrats believe those compromises could lie in tax expenditures—including by eliminating “egregious” loopholes that wealthy individuals and...
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Beyond Bitcoin: Other Technological Advancements in Money Laundering
November 15th, 2013
Technological advancements in currency are already challenging our efforts toward transparency. As I’ve discussed before, digital currency, most notably Bitcoin, grant added flexibility and opacity to the international financial system for criminals, money launderers, and tax evaders. If trends continue on their current trajectory, these technological developments, namely digital currency, will represent a significant obstacle to stemming the continued tide of illicit financial flows from developing countries. Yet there are other technological—and digital—pathways for criminals to launder money. These are still not well-understood, but are nonetheless vitally important. The earlier—and better—we can understand them, the better our chance of tackling...
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Closing Tax Loopholes: A Political Compromise for the Budget Conference Committee
November 7th, 2013
With the government running again, the joint Senate and House Budget Conference Committee has begun meeting to hammer out, if not a grand bargain, at least a small one. The Committee must deliver a report by December 15 and, to avert another shutdown, Congress must extend government funding by January 15. It’s difficult to overstate the political importance of a compromise, but the economics are important here, as well. The federal deficit has been declining since it hit a high of 10.1% of GDP in 2009 (though most American’s don’t know it). The deficit today is about 7% of GDP...
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Campaigns and Policy: Public Registries and Beneficial Owners
October 31st, 2013
Nuance can be a challenge for Financial Transparency Coalition issues. To the average citizen or politician, the relationship between banking laws in developed countries and poverty in developing countries is not self-evident. On its face, it’s not obvious that public registries in the United Kingdom have anything to do with corruption in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yet there are compelling connections between these issues and strong causal relationships between them. Our challenge is to explain why. At the risk of sounding too self-congratulatory, I must say the group of organizations who work on these issues does a phenomenal...
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