At the press briefing on Thursday 27th January in Davos, which hosts the World Economic Forum, an elite gathering of some of the most powerful corporations, three founder members of the Tax Justice Network will be calling upon businesses to be more transparent in their reporting on tax payments.

Paying taxes should be regarded as a litmus test of a genuine commitment to corporate responsibility, and arguments about compliance with tax law distract from the fact that many companies are able to organise their affairs in tax havens where laws are both lax and secretive, and whose tax regimes enable companies to launder their profits in order to avoid paying taxes anywhere. According to Dr Andreas Missbach «Our argument is not about legality, it is about responsibility and ethics. The Corporate Social Responsibility agenda is driven by demand for an ethical approach to doing business. It is not possible to be ethical in one area of business conduct and to act otherwise in another area, and companies that function in this way reveal a major disconnect in their core organisational values.»