A Clear Through-Line From Financial Secrecy to Eroded Democracy

How often do we pause to reflect on the socioeconomic impacts of financial secrecy and tax avoidance? During my decades as a corporate tax lawyer, the answer for me was: not at all. But last week’s inaugural meeting of the DC Forum attracted scholars, journalists, and civil society leaders who think about this question a lot.

Opening the forum, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) warned that financial secrecy and tax avoidance are “degrading the rule of law.” Global Financial Integrity founder Raymond Baker developed that theme, as he does at length in “Invisible Trillions,” into a syllogism: Financial ...