This weekend’s G20 summit received a big thumbs down from ActionAid, because of its watered-down statements on most development issues.
But on tax dodging, there was actually something new and exciting! The G20 "encouraged the International Accounting Standards Board to further improve the involvement of stakeholders, including outreach to emerging market economies, within the framework of the independent accounting standard setting process."
Maybe they’d picked up a leaflet from the Outlandish Revenue Service at the IASB’s conference in London last week. “The IASB has a growing influence over the fortunes of businesses, markets, governments and citizens,” said our leaflets. “Care is needed to ensure that new measures benefit the public as well as investors and businesses.
”Arcane though it might sound, it’s high time the IASB – which decides how multinational companies have to present their financial statements – made more room for the views of everyone who uses financial statements. It could start by adopting the recommendations made by our colleagues in the Publish What You Pay coalition for its new standard for the mining industry.
In addition, the world leaders in Toronto made their habitual reference to the crack down on tax havens, welcoming progress by the OECD’s snappily-titled Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes on “their peer review process, and the development of a multilateral mechanism for information exchange which will be open to all interested countries.”
The G20 were also keen that the Forum report back to them in time for their next big jamboree in France in November 2011 – something that summit’s host Nikolas Sarkozy had been keen to ensure.
This blog was originally published by Eurodad member ActionAid at http://www.actionaid.org.uk/102019/blog.html?article=1977