Financial Transparency Coalition

Earlier this week, Facebook, and other sites, were buzzing with talk about Warren Buffett’s op-ed in The New York Times, where the American billionaire called on U.S. policymakers to raise the income tax rate for the richest Americans. Indeed, The Washington Post even posted a link on its Facebook page to an AP article about the op-ed with this apt description: “In case you missed it -- and there's only a slim chance you did --- Warren Buffett is calling on the so-called ‘mega-rich‘ to pay more in taxes.” Most of the reactions I saw were supportive of Mr....

Mark your calendar for the 2011 annual conference of the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development! This year's conference will take place in Paris, France from October 6-7, 2011. Stay tuned for more information on the event through our website, on our Facebook page, and via our Twitter account.

Last month, the Secretary General of the OECD, Angel Gurría, came to Washington, and among his appointments was a public talk at the Center for Global Development (where he is a member of the board of directors). A former finance minister and foreign minister for Mexico, Sr. Gurría was every bit the politician and statesman – smiling, good projection and eye contact, very personable and very optimistic – hardly a negative word was mentioned about himself or the OECD. Secretary General Gurría began his talk with a brief summary of the world economy. He noted that the center of...

An article the other week in the Ugandan Daily Monitor quotes an official from the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), Mr. Patrick Mukiibi, on the value and implications of illicit flows from that country. According to the article, Uganda loses UGX 2 trillion (approx. USD 866 million) annually through “tax crime”, also termed “economic and tax fraud”. The Ugandan Ministry of Finance says that the current fiscal year (2010/2011) government budget is UGX 7.5 trillion (approx. USD 3.2 billion), and it will need loans and other development assistance to cover 26 percent of this. In other words, the article...