BLOG

Naomi Fowler ■ 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

1

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

Want to download and listen on the go? Download onto your phone or hand held device by clicking ‘save link’ here.

Want more Taxcasts? The full playlist is here and here. Or here.

Want to subscribe? Subscribe via email by contacting the Taxcast producer on naomi [at] taxjustice.net OR subscribe to the Taxcast RSS feed here OR subscribe to our youtube channel, Tax Justice TV OR find us on Acast, Spotify, iTunes or Stitcher.

 

Further reading:

Details on Transparify’s 2018 report on think tank transparency: https://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://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]

Related articles

Comments • 1

  • July 26, 2018 - 10:10 pm

    Great stuff , especially enjoyed the swipe at the IEA who were put up against me on the radio 4 Sunday programme on June 19th, for Tax Justice Sunday and among other things described tax as extortion people’s personal money ‘at gunpoint’

  • Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.