Photo: Sebastian Pichler

What is the role of the tax avoidance industry?  How can the challenges that tax havens represent be mitigated? On 21 and 22 November 2016, leading academics, practitioners and investigative journalists from all over the world meet in Bergen, Norway, to present state of the art research on tax havens, elite behaviour and international taxation, and discuss how tax havens affect developing countries. 

The conference is hosted by Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) and the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH).  It is organised in collaboration with Tax Justice Network Norway and the TaxCapDev-network, with financial support from the Research Council of Norway. The conference is open and free of charge for interested researchers, policy makers, tax practitioners, civil society, students and journalists.

Please register here

See program here.

Monday 21 November

  • Welcoming address
  • Financial flows and tax havens: Combining to harm millions of people
  • Are less developed countries more exposed to multinational tax avoidance?
  • Tanzania country study on illicit financial flows
  • Mispriced minerals and capital flows from African countries
  • Panama Papers and the business model of tax havens
  • The financial secrecy index
  • A critic on the effectiveness of the OECD BEPS project in addressing tax base eroding: a developing country perspective
  • The components of a transparent fiscal system
  • Panel debate

 

Tuesday 22 November

  • Powering ideas through expertise: Professionals in global tax battles
  • Inside the secretive world of tax-avoidance experts
  • Financial secrecy and law enforcement
  • Enablers of capital flight: The role of the International Financial Service Centre in Africa
  • Tax havens and political participation in Tanzania
  • Shaping public policies in poorly regulated natural resource rich countries: Lobbying games by domestic and foreign companies in Tanzania
  • Student presentations
  • Conversation: Investigative journalism, Panama Papers and research
  • Concluding remarks and the way forward