Financial Transparency Coalition

It was a busy Tuesday night for the tax justice campaign team. Many of us here at ActionAid were hearing from the fantastic campaigners that we had speaking at our event (more on that later). And a few more were glued to the Finance Bill debate in Parliament.

Tax Haven USA: New York Times Articles Expose Need to Abolish Anonymous U.S. Shell Companies Global Financial Integrity (Press Release), July 3, 2012 Call for strategy to recover stolen cash IPP Media (Tanzania), July 4, 2012 Vatican receives money-laundering report Reuters, July 4, 2012 Judge rejects release of suspect in cartel money-laundering case Austin American-Statesman,

Everyone knows athletes cheat. Cheating has existed for as long as sports themselves. During the ancient Olympic Games in Greece, officials placed pedestals inscribed with athletes’ names at the entrance of the stadium. The names were not of great athletes, but of those who violated the rules of the Games, in order to punish them into perpetuity. In today’s version of public dishonor, our media nationally broadcasts the names and crimes of steroid-injecting baseball players, blood-doping cyclists, and plotting figure-skaters. Not all athletes cheat—even those who have the opportunity to. I would know. For three years, I lived at the...

Three separate articles were published by The New York Times this week, connecting the dots of the shadow financial system. All three articles centered in some way around incorporation transparency - knowing who is the real beneficial owner of the corporation that you are doing business with. This issue is one of the five recommendations advocated for by the Task Force, and is at the center of countless world problems.