Writing History Before It Happens

The report, Golden Dodges: How McDonald's Avoids Paying Its Fair Share of Tax, does not allege illegal behaviour by the company, which is among several multinationals that have been taking advantage of loopholes in current laws

UK stories Government for Sale also Price of Tax Avoidace

First, I am your professor, not your teacher. There is a difference. Up to now your instruction has been in the hands of teachers, and a teacher’s job is to make sure that you learn… However, things are very different for a university professor. It is no part of my job to make you learn. At university, learning is your job — and yours alone. My job is to lead you to the fountain of knowledge. Whether you drink deeply or only gargle is entirely up to you.

That is Keith Parsons (University of Houston – Clear Lake), writing in the Huffington Post about a lesson he imparts to his first-year students. It’s a fun rant defending an “old-fashioned” approach to college education

Tesco has parted ways with its auditors of 32 years, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). This decision follows the £263m accounting scandal that engulfed the supermarket last year and it is moving its business to rival accountancy firm Deloitte & Touche.
Scandals and Regulation lead to an auditing merry go round

Now a full paper on the FSI is being published for the first time in a leading academic journal, Economic Geography. Here’s the abstract:

Both academic research and public policy debate around tax havens andoffshore finance typically suffer from a lack of definitional consistency. Unsurprisingly then, there is little agreement about which jurisdictions ought to be considered as tax havens—or which policy measures would result in their not being so considered. In this article we explore and make operational an alternative concept, that of asecrecy jurisdiction and present the findings of the resulting Financial Secrecy Index (FSI).

http://theconversation.com/scandals-and-regulation-lead-to-an-auditing-merry-go-round-41904

• Australia named 'major money launderer'
  Australia is one of the world's major money laundering countries and home to terrorist cells involved in fundraising, according to a US government report. However, Australia fares well in the 2015 International Narcotics Control Strategy report, which praises the federal government's system to detect, prevent and prosecute money laundering.
  
  

  • FATF Report – why it’s a “whole new ball game”
    With the recent release of the Australian chapter of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) 2015 mutual evaluation report, a series of observations and recommendations have been outlined. In this exclusive article, Roger Wilkins AO, President of the FATF, shares his insights into where Australia needs to focus its efforts - for banks, regulators and enforcers. 
    
    A group of family members whose charities claimed to be raising millions of dollars for cancer victims bilked donors to the tune of $US187 million ($236m) over five years, spending some of that money on luxury cars and trips for themselves and their friends, according to a civil suit Sham cancer charities and $1/4 billion