07 IFFs.docx

U4 Brief, 2012

Illicit financial flows and measures to counter them: An introduction The most common sources of illicit financial flows are tax evasion and money laundering. Countermeasures include institution building strategies, international cooperation and information exchange, and fiscal transparency. Development practitioners need to understand the nature of the problem of illicit financial flows as an obstacle to development, and be aware of interventions that can reduce such flows.

While tax issues have been historically disconnected from the mobilization against money laundering, there is now an ongoing reconfiguration of this “border” in France and at the international level. Our contribution aims to analyze the inclusion process of tax issues within anti-money laundering policy in order to understand the current transformation of the fight against “dirty money”. To what extent is there a new impulse regarding the practices of differentiation, hierarchization and management of economic and financial illegalisms?

SHS Web of Conferences, 2021

The EU and the Member States have been forced in recent years to take a stronger position against the growing trend of tax fraud, tax evasion, and tax avoidance. The EU legislative and non-legislative acts in this area have resulted from political attitudes, economic intentions, proposals, and compromises reached between the individual Member States, on the one hand, and the EU, on the other, in their effort to combat fraudulent behaviour in the taxation area. The fight against fraudulent behaviour in the taxation area, be it tax fraud, tax evasion or tax avoidance, has become a real global challenge not only for the EU and its Member States but also for the entire world. These are different forms and methods for misusing tax systems both within the EU and abroad. This paper is part of the project: “Electronic methods for detecting unusual business transactions in the business environment” (ITMS code: 313022W057), co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and also...

Geopolitics of the Illicit

Fraudes, frontières et territoires (XIIIe-XXIe siècle), 2020

Washington D.C. : The OECD Secretary-General updated the G20 Finance Ministers on tax transparency. "The OECD should address potential loopholes, both actual and perceived and taking action whenever necessary." The OECDs Common Reporting Standard requires significant amendments to be effective. It is the writer's opinion that the use of secrecy to evade taxes will continue due to the loopholes and deficiencies in the Standard. In some offshore financial centres, virtually no reporting will occur due to implicit acquiescence by authorities in permitting the utilisation of the perceived or real loopholes. This will result in tax evasion being displaced rather than resolved. This report details the loopholes being used and suggests amendments to the Standard required to counter circumvention strategies.

Review of Law and Economics, 2009

Money laundering can be defined, generally, as the process of concealing the existence, illegal source, or application of income derived from a criminal activity, and the subsequent disguising of the source of that income to make it appear legitimate. Deception is the heart of money laundering. The use of international trade to move money, undetected, from one country to another is one of the oldest techniques used to circumvent government scrutiny. International trade as a means of laundering money is also a technique generally ignored by most government law enforcement agencies. This article details how false international trade invoicing is used to move money across borders, undetected. This research details how the statistical analysis of the U.S. trade database can assist in measuring illegal money flows. It also details some statistical techniques that may be used to detect and monitor these abnormal transactions.

This paper examines trends in illicit financial flows (IFFs) across eight pre-selected focus countries in Asia: Kyrgyzstan; Tajikistan; Afghanistan; Pakistan; India; Nepal; Bangladesh; and Myanmar. For the purposes of this research, IFFs are defined as ‘money illegally earned, transferred, or used that crosses borders’. The study provides an assessment of routes, actors and sources of IFFs in and between these Asian countries. IFFs are complex. They can stem from flows of illicit goods (such as narcotics and counterfeit money), but they also include illicit finance generated from legitimate or legal trade, including jade, gold and white goods. IFFs are often facilitated by a range of actors, with collusion between public and private, legal and illegal, and criminal and political. With this in mind, identifying trends related to products is not as useful as better understanding the individual flows related to certain business practices or commodities. A key finding from this study was that the term ‘illicit financial flows’ is often misunderstood and confused by governments working on the issue for those activities that are implicated in IFFs, such as corruption or money laundering. As a result, IFFs are under-researched. Through an examination of both the national and international risks facing certain countries in Asia, which continues to have the highest levels of illicit outflows in dollars in the developing world, this paper should act as a gateway for wider and more in-depth research into IFFs. The main objective of this paper is to better understand how IFFs work from and between the focus countries, as well as how they link to financial centres elsewhere. The paper aims to inform development agencies and international donors, particularly the Department for International Development (DfID), on how to improve their interventions to combat IFFs. The research for this paper is based on desk research carried out by RUSI’s regional and thematic experts, as well as two in-country workshops (in New Delhi and Bishkek) and remote telephone interviews carried out over six months. The two regional workshops brought together experts and officials from the focus countries to explore regional factors in more depth.

Jurnalul de studii juridice, 2022

This article is dedicated to the collaboration of the Department for the Fight against Fraud (DLAF) as a national body responsible for detecting and combating tax evasion with the European Anti-Fraud Office, known as OLAF (French acronym-Office de Lutte Anti-Fraude). The paper will present: in the first point general notions about the two institutions; in the second point we will present the provisions of art. 23-art.31 of Law no. 61/2011 on the organisation and functioning of the Department for the Fight against Fraud (DLAF); in the third point we will present a series of actions related to European funds: PHARE, ISPA, SAPARD, POSDRU, EAFRD from the activity reports of the Department for the Fight against Fraud (DLAF). We will take into account the following regulations when drafting the article: Law no. 61/2011 on the organisation and functioning of the Department for the Fight against Fraud (DLAF), Government Decision no. 738/2011 approving the Regulation on the organisation and functioning of the Department for the Fight against Fraud and other regulations to which these regulations refer, Decision no. 1999/352 of 28 April 1999 of the European Commission establishing the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).

U4 Brief, 2012

While once considered solely a concern of law enforcement agencies; money laundering, tax evasion and secrecy jurisdictions are now perceived as important obstacles to development. Dealing with illicit financial flows is an important aspect of the policy coherence agenda in international development, and developed country governments have made international commitments to tackle the problem. 1 Reforms and actions are necessary both in developed and developing countries, and this Brief looks at the experiences of some bilateral agencies that have begun to implement the illicit financial flows-agenda. Promising areas to engage in include support for improving tax systems and strengthening anti-monely laundering programmes. Implementing the illicit financial flows agenda: Perspectives from developing countries The concept of Illicit financial flows There are various definitions of illicit financial flows. The term includes not only clearly illegal actions but also borderline activities such as tax avoidance. Of particular interest for this brief are corruption and corporate tax evasion.