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Thursday, July 06, 2017

Taxing Times: Why are the Big Four so heavily over-represented in tax havens?

Why are the Big Four so heavily over-represented in tax havens?


The work that Saila Stausholm and I have undertaken on the Big Four firms of accountants and auditors has sought to establish a number of things about them given the opacity hat surrounds their operations. One of these things was precisely where they are. You would think this should have been straightforward, but it was not. The firms seem to find it quite hard to publish accurate lists of where they are located, although PWC got pretty close. Having established what we thought were correct lists we located these firms on a world map. As is clear, the overwhelming majority of countries in the world have at least three out of the four firms present, and all four are present in most countries.

Why are the Big Four so heavily over-represented in tax havens? 





  • The Big Four – A Study of Opacity





  • Recovering Africa’s Stolen Assets: from Jersey to Kenya 





  • Redistributive hypocrisy: The growing dominance of tax haven USA 





  • Rangers tax case: supreme court rules in favour of HMRC 





  • HMRC wins Rangers 'big tax case' ruling 





  • Read UK Supreme Court Judgment  in RFC 2012 Plc (in liquidation) (formerly The Rangers Football Club Plc) (Appellant) v Advocate General for Scotland (Respondent) (Scotland)




  • Funds With $10 Trillion Targeted by EU Alert on Letterbox Firms 




  • US government seeks to intervene in Apple's EU tax appeal 





  • Country-by-country-reporting: Increased tax transparency without jeopardizing competitiveness 





  • Film tax fraudsters, including a  former Ernst & Young partner, told to repay £2m or face more jail 





  • UN: Tax competition and corporate tax avoidance “inconsistent” with human rights





  • Tax competition and corporate tax avoidance 'inconsistent with human rights - UN treaty body





  • EU cracks down on multinational tax avoidance 





  • Ex-Barclays chief John Varley appears in court over fraud charges 





  • OTS pushes for simpler corporation tax regime 




  • Office of Tax Simplification (OTS): Simplification of the corporation tax computation 





  • Carmarthen directors' £2.7m tax fraud 'funded dream lives' 




  • Wales taxes: Public called on for revenue raising ideas 




  • Emissions tax slows new UK car sales for third consecutive month 





  • Rights group criticises Saudi expat tax for refugees  


  •  The Chinese Debt Time Bomb
    The latest debt data out of China adds to the expected end-game of a big reversal of fortunes

     Chinese tech billionaire’s woes mount with asset freezeCNN. “[His company’s] U.S. interests include electric car company Faraday Future and offices in Silicon Valley.”
    China polishes up rust belt with switch to creative industries FT. If this both true and a parallel process to what happened in this country — I’d love to know who the Chinese Richard Florida is — that means that Chinese workers are completely [family blog]-ed, and Chinese volatility voters will revoke the Mandate of Heaven. We can’t all become artisanal noodle makers in Chong Qing.