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. 

January 15, 2010

Monique Perry Danziger, 202-293-0740

WASHINGTON, DC — The European Network on Debt and Development (EURODAD), comprised of 59 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from 18 European countries working on debt, development finance, and poverty reduction, has joined the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) announced today.

“For the last 20 years EURODAD has been a leader in work examining aid effectiveness, capital flight and financial regulation,” said GFI director Raymond Baker.   “Their work on the promotion of responsible finance principles and practices and the redesign of the financial architecture makes them a key addition to the growing membership of the Task Force,” said Baker.

January 7, 2010

Monique Perry Danziger, 202-293-0740

Washington, DC — Global Financial Integrity (GFI) released today a statement-dubbed the New Haven Declaration-which debuts a new partnership between humans rights and financial transparency advocacy groups. Today's announcement follows a meeting of prominent human rights and financial transparency organizations at Yale University in early December, 2009. The groups discussed the link between illicit financial practices, secrecy in global finance and their adverse impact on human rights.

"The links between human rights and financial transparency are undeniable," said GFI Director Raymond Baker. "An estimated $1 trillion is siphoned out of poor countries annually. Further, some 18 million people die each year from causes stemming from economic deprivation. Of these, ten million are children under the age of five who die from diseases for which vaccines are available."

December 17, 2009

Monique Perry Danziger, 202-293-0740

Washington, DC — A new audit program developed by Chile's tax authority to detect "differences in inter-company transactions" of Chilean multinational corporations is a crucial step towards more effective regulation of a practice often utilized by multinationals to evade taxes, said Global Financial Integrity (GFI) Wednesday.

A GFI analysis of illicit financial flows from developing countries measured Chile's outflows at approximately $7 to $8 billion per year between 2002-2006. Corporate tax evasion is a major driver of illicit financial outflows.