(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
First up is the requirement of transparency for companies operating in Norway. Where do they send the money? What do they pay in taxes? The so-called country-by-country reporting should provide the answers to such simple questions. Six years after the Tax Justice Network sent the idea to Norway via Attac, and after persistent efforts by, among others, Changemaker, we got the transparency law in 2014. The problem was that the law did not require companies to report on what they were doing in tax havens, also called "third country support functions".
In the summer of 2015, a total parliament decided to close the gaps in the transparency law. Last winter, the Ministry of Finance sent a regulation on consultation to update the law. The Ministry of Finance is expanding which companies the Transparency Act should apply to, but reporting from tax havens is still omitted. "Support features in third countries" are not included.
We therefore have a finance ministry that does not follow the demands of the Storting. The government got a taste of the Control and Constitution Committee because they spent so long following the Storting's message. When the response came, the proposal still did not comply with the Storting's demand. The Ministry of Finance is now addressing all the consultation input that criticizes the lack of reporting requirements in tax havens.
Oil Fund investments. Another important area is the requirement to know who the real owner of a company is. This law is intended to prevent a company from being owned by a shell company nobody knows about and who does not pay taxes. This initiative suffers the same fate as the Transparency Act. Here it is the Ministry of Trade and Fisheries that spends a long time. The majority of the Storting requested an ownership register in the spring of 2015. A year later there was a proposal for a hearing, which limited the public's access to the registers. It is now almost a year since this proposal was tabled, and we have heard nothing more.
Then we have a third area: the Oil Fund. Exactly at the same time as the Panama Papers scandal, the Annual Report to the Oil Fund was presented to the Finance Committee at the Storting. Bad luck, some would say. Fortunately, others will say – and among them we find more politicians. Suddenly there was a massive pressure to withdraw the Oil Fund's investments from tax havens. Needed: Up to 20 percent of the Oil Fund's investments are in tax havens, an independent review showed in connection with the ownership announcement.
Towards the election next year, we have expectations that tax justice will be shown to our politicians.
The political will to seize tax havens was clearer than ever. In particular, the KrF, the Center Party, the Left and the SV were chopped. They wanted the government to make a plan for reducing investment in tax havens. The parties emphasized that financial secrecy is a key driver in the development of global economic and social inequality.
Responsibility. One thing a majority of the parties agreed on was that the Norwegian Petroleum Fund should create a so-called expectation document. This month, civil society is invited to provide input on what this document will require. The document lists what the Oil Fund expects for the company it invests in. There are no direct sanctions related to breach of expectations. We also know nothing about the dialogue between the Oil Fund and the companies. There are no logs or minutes of these meetings.
We still have expectations. But the highest expectations are not aimed at the companies. The Oil Fund owns almost five percent of Credit Suisse, which is not only revealed in helping with tax evasion, but for laundering money. Politicians expect such companies to take "corporate social responsibility" with voluntary guidelines. How about having social responsibility with courageous politicians?
The KrF recently proposed an international convention to tax companies as a whole and not allow them to send money to subsidiaries in tax havens. Such suggestions can come true.
Towards the election next year, we have expectations that tax justice will be shown to our politicians. If not, they will continue to be spectators to a retaining finance ministry.
