February 12, 2010

Monique Perry Danziger, 202-293-0740

Washington, DC -- Developing country treasuries are losing approximately $100 billion dollars every year due to trade mispricing, according to a new report available today from Global Financial Integrity (GFI).

“Every year crime, corruption, and tax evasion drain $1 trillion out of developing countries,” said GFI director Raymond Baker, citing figures from GFI’s 2008 report, “Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries 2002—2006.”  This report builds on the analysis put forward in our “Illicit Flows” report by more closely examining one particular form of financial outflow – trade mispricing – and showing how it removes money from a developing economy, in this case by depriving the government of tax revenue.”

Report findings include:

January 27, 2010

Monique Perry Danziger, 202-293-0740

WASHINGTON, DC - The UK's proposal to tackle tax evasion in developing countries by instituting multilateral tax information exchange agreements and requiring multinational corporations to provide country-by-country reporting of profits and revenue could help prevent the loss of as much as $1 trillion from developing countries every year, says Global Financial Integrity (GFI).

"Every year crime, corruption, and tax evasion drain $1 trillion out of the developing world," said GFI managing director Tom Cardamone, who will be in Paris for the second day of the OECD's Global Forum on Development meeting, where the UK made its announcement today.   "That's ten times the amount of official development assistance that's going in, or put another way, for every $1 in economic aid received by developing countries, $10 is being lost.  The UK's proposal is a critical first step in tackling this devastating problem."

January 21, 2010

Monique Perry Danziger, 202-293-0740

WASHINGTON, DC - Global Financial Integrity (GFI) launched its "G20 Transparency" campaign today, an international grassroots sign-on drive to collect 100,000 signatures on a petition calling for greater transparency in the global financial system.  The petition will be delivered to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper prior to the G20 meeting in Toronto at the end of June.  

The campaign kicked off with the debut of www.G20transparency.com, a Web site devoted to the campaign where supporters may read and sign the petition, which will be available in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish.  The Web site will also allow supporters to share the petition with others via peer-to-peer and social networking tools.