Financial Transparency Coalition

After a year of negotiations with Member States and the European Commission, and strong involvement by Eurodad and our partners, the European Parliament this week voted in favour of new accounting rules for extractive and logging sectors. The Accounting Directive will require companies in these two sectors to disclose their payments to governments in every country where they operate.

In a response to the OECD’s February report Addressing Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, 58 campaigning organisations say it’s time to make multinationals pay their fair share of tax. Eurodad, Christian Aid and others call on the OECD and G20 to work with the United Nations Tax Committee and governments in developing countries to define new rules for the taxation of multinational companies.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) secured a big step towards the financial transparency needed to combat tax dodging last week when they made EU Finance Ministers agree on country-by-country reporting for EU banks from 2014. This represents a major victory after years of campaigning by Eurodad members and allies. The deal under the EU’s Capital Requirement Directive is timely and it can – and should – influence the final agreement on the Accounting Directive, where country-by-country reporting is still on the table.