A firewall to protect EU citizens from the Big Four accountancy firms and the tax avoidance lobby: the Tax Justice Network’s July 2018 podcast

In the July 2918 Taxcast:

• we look at a proposal for a firewall to protect EU citizens from the Big Four accountancy firms and the tax avoidance lobby: we look at a new report from the Corporate Europe Observatory
• we discuss UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Professor Philip Alston’s announced visit to the UK to look at austerity and the human rights consequences: his report on the US was hard-hitting and controversial. What will he make of the UK?
• and we look at Transparify’s 2018 think tank funding transparency rankings and talk about how opacity is the name of the game for many of the ‘free market’ lobby groups pushing for Brexit, deregulation, privatisation and tax havenry, such as the Institute for Economic Affairs.

Featuring: Vicky Cann of the Corporate Europe Observatory, John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network. Produced and presented by Naomi Fowler.

EU tax policy makers should be protected from the vested interests of the tax avoidance industry. What we want to see is a real change of culture at the EU level and at member state level as well which stops seeing the Big 4 as legitimate, trusted, neutral partners when it comes to stamping out tax avoidance.”

Vicky Cann, Corporate Europe Observatory

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Further reading:

Details on Transparify’s 2018 report on think tank transparency: https://www.taxjustice.net/2018/07/16/who-funds-you-transparency-and-think-tanks-we-score-the-maximum-again/

Details on Corporate Europe Observatory’s report ‘Accounting for influence: how the Big Four are embedded in EU tax avoidance policy’ https://www.taxjustice.net/2018/07/10/accounting-for-influence-how-the-big-four-are-embedded-in-eu-tax-avoidance-policy/

Read up on the Brexit Syndicate here.

Details on the Institute for Economic Affairs and the investigation by the UK Charity Commission, here and here. [And here’s a late addition on the Institute for Economic Affairs, an expose in the Guardian newspaper: Rightwing UK thinktank ‘offered ministerial access’ to potential US donors]