Money laundering and audit fees

We investigate the association between state-level money laundering sentences and audit fees in the US. Money laundering measures a broad category of offenses involving financial transactions using funds or monetary instruments gained through criminal activities and tax evasion. We find that firms headquartered in US states with high rates of money laundering sentences pay more audit fees. Our results suggest that auditors incorporate, as a fee premium, the higher risks involved when clients operate in those states. Our result remains robust to alternative specifications of money laundering proxies, and to the inclusion of a number of firm-level and state-level control variables. We also conduct two-stage least squares and propensity score matching analysis to mitigate the endogeneity problem that might arise from omitted variables, reverse causality, or model misspecification problems.     

资金异常流动监测中资金流速与特征研究

资金异常流动监测一直是反洗钱工作的核心组成部分，而监测工作的目的在于将非法的资金流动速率限制在一定的范围内。本文对现行反洗钱法规中所内含的监测标准进行了量化工作；还针对现有监测约束条件下资金异常流动活动中金额与时间、账户数等参数之间的关系进行了分析，确定了一定条件下资金流动绝对上限。最后本文对洗钱者可能呈现出的新特征进行了分析与设想。     

Destination taxation and evasion: Evidence from U.S. inter-state commodity flows

Tax evasion has been an important issue in the accounting literature for several decades, but the focus has been on corporate income taxes. We develop a new way to examine tax evasion that focuses on corporate transactions, rather than corporate profits. Specifically, we examine how commodity flows respond to destination sales taxes, allowing for tax evasion as a function of distance between trade partners. After accounting for transportation costs, we find that the effect of taxes decreases as distance increases. This is consistent with the notion that longer distances between trade partners hinder government oversight and increase the likelihood of successful tax evasion. Our results are robust with respect to outliers, strategic neighbor effects, information sharing agreements and other re-specifications. These results are important to policymakers because they evidence the difficulty of enforcing destination taxation in open economies such as U.S. states and the European Union.     

钻石贸易洗钱与恐怖融资：方式、监管及工作建议

本文对钻石贸易及其洗钱活动进行了概述和深入研究,分析了钻石贸易的脆弱性和洗钱漏洞以及利用钻石贸易进行洗钱和融资的不同方式。在此基础上,介绍了目前各国针对钻石交易和跨境运输等方面的监管现状,并为规范钻石贸易行业和加强反洗钱及反恐怖融资监管提出具体建议。     

自贸区反洗钱问题研究——以离岸业务为例

建立中国（上海）自由贸易试验区是一项重大的国家战略．离岸业务是自贸区一项重要业务，离岸业务在给一国经济带来巨大发展空间的同时．也带来了巨大的风险隐患。风险之一便是洗钱。目前国际上主要的洗钱路径是通过离岸金融和离岸贸易．但最终大部分都需要经过离岸的金融业务来进行资金的流转。离岸业务中的洗钱手法多样、洗钱渠道众多、洗钱工具新颖、洗钱风险巨大，为确保自贸区金融安全．必须建立一种以风险为本的有效反洗钱制度；构建一种基于定量分析的风险测量模型；形成一个基于系统集成的“反洗钱社区”。     

Taxing multinationals in a world with portfolio flows and R&D: Is capital export neutrality obsolete?

This paper examines recent claims that capital export neutrality no longer serves as an effective principle for the taxation of income from foreign direct investment, due to the large and growing role played by portfolio capital in financing investment and to the recognition that R&D is an important determinant of international trade and investment. In our evaluation of these claims, we find capital export neutrality appears robust. Because both domestic and foreign activities may be financed with portfolio capital, and they both produce goods that compete in the world economy, there is no compelling reason to grant a lower tax to foreign income alone. Regarding the promotion of R&D or the entry of new competitors, cutting the tax on foreign income may be no more effective than cutting the tax on domestic income. A second focus of the paper is to calculate what the residual U.S. tax rate on active foreign income actually is. Based on 1990 data this rate is negative if foreign income is defined appropriately.     

代理行业务反洗钱管理研究

代理行业务作为商业银行国际业务的重要组成,对于促进跨境金融活动、支撑国际贸易、推动包容性增长等方面具有重要意义。但由于该业务的内生特点,往往隐藏着较大的洗钱风险。近年来代理行业务洗钱案件频现,凸显了代理行业务在风险治理、尽职调查、风险评估、交易监控等方面的问题。商业银行要稳健发展好代理行业务,需要从事前、事中、事后等环节加强反洗钱管理。     

Free trade taxation and protectionist taxation

The goal of this paper is to seek new insight regarding international tax policy by recasting it in parallel with the theory of international trade. This is accomplished by defining a free trade taxation regime as one that is consistent with an efficient worldwide allocation of capital, and evaluating within this perspective various aspects of tax policy, such as value-added (axes, integration, income shifting, and the choice of worldwide or territorial system of taxes.Compatibility with free trade is not the only standard against which to judge an international tax system. Nevertheless, as national economies become more integrated the importance of international taxation for the efficient functioning of capital markets will become a central policy issue.     

Tax Evasion, Risky Laundering, and Optimal Deterrence Policy

This paper extends the Allingham and Sandmo's (1972) model of income tax evasion to take account of laundering opportunities, allowing the taxpayer to determine not only the amount of actual income to declare but also the amount of undeclared income to launder. Laundering, aside of entailing direct costs, is assumed to be an unlawful activity, subject to the risk of detection and punishment. The tax authorities devote separate resource efforts to initial audits which may detect undeclared income that has not been laundered and to in-depth investigation which may detect undeclared income that has been laundered. The paper analyzes the effects of laundering incentives on evasion and derives guidelines for the optimal design of a joint evasion/laundering deterrence policy. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Transparency and Tax Evasion: Evidence from the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)

We examine how U.S. individuals respond to regulation intended to reduce offshore tax evasion. The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) requires foreign financial institutions to report information to the U.S. government regarding U.S. account holders. We first document an average $7.8 billion to $15.3 billion decrease in equity foreign portfolio investment to the United States from tax-haven countries after FATCA implementation, consistent with a decrease in “round-tripping” investments attributable to U.S. investors’ offshore tax evasion. When testing total worldwide investment out of financial accounts in tax havens post-FATCA, we find an average decline of $56.6 billion to $78.0 billion. We next provide evidence of other important consequences of this regulation, including increased expatriations of U.S. citizens and greater investment in alternative assets not subject to FATCA reporting, such as residential real estate and artwork. Our study contributes to both the academic literature and policy analysis on regulation, tax evasion, and crime.     

Taking the Long Way Home: U.S. Tax Evasion and Offshore Investments in U.S. Equity and Debt Markets

We empirically investigate one form of illegal investor‐level tax evasion and its effect on foreign portfolio investment. In particular, we examine a form of round‐tripping tax evasion in which U.S. individuals hide funds in entities located in offshore tax havens and then invest those funds in U.S. securities markets. Employing Becker's ( 1968 ) economic theory of crime, we identify the tax evasion component by examining how foreign portfolio investment varies with changes in the incentives to evade and the risks of detection. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical evidence of investor‐level tax evasion affecting cross‐border equity and debt investment.     

Optimal factor and commodity taxation in a small open economy

A two-sector trade model with specific factors and perfect international capital mobility is used to analyze the optimal mix of factor and commodity taxation in a small open economy that faces domestic or international constraints on its tax instruments. In the unconstrained benchmark case, the small country will tax specific factors and domestic consumption but chooses zero tax rates for a selective production tax (i.e., an origin-based commodity tax) and a source-based tax on capital income. When commodity taxation must follow a combination of origin and destination principles, then this mixed commodity tax rate will be positive and its production effects are partly compensated in the optimum by a capital subsidy. These international restrictions interact with domestic constraints when rents accruing to fixed factors cannot be taxed by a separate instrument, and a positive tax rate on capital serves as an indirect way of rent taxation.     

Mapping global money laundering trends: Lessons from the pace setters

This paper uses an exploratory data analysis tool to map countries according to key factors—internet penetration rates, brain drain, efficiency of legal system, and effective tax and financial systems on the incidence of money laundering. Pace setters and laggards in the pervasiveness of money laundering for 88 countries will be identified. The results indicate that pace setters have high development of internet adoption, low incidence of brain drain, sound legal, tax and financial systems, and low incidence of money laundering. From the study, key policy initiatives adopted by pace-setter countries to reduce money laundering activities were examined.     

Money laundering—a global obstacle

One of the biggest obstacles to maintaining an effective operating international financial system is money laundering. A global phenomenon and international challenge, money laundering is a financial crime that often involves a complex series of transactions and numerous financial institutions across many foreign jurisdictions. In addition, money laundering is also extremely difficult to investigate and prosecute. In this paper, I present a clinical examination of the money laundering process, the international extent of the problem and global efforts to introduce anti-money laundering measures and regulation in recent years.     

洗钱罪认定与上游犯罪领域拓展研究

洗钱犯罪是为上游犯罪所获取的非法收入进行清洗、处置的犯罪,洗钱犯罪人员是上游犯罪资金清洗的协助者.如何完善法律、法规,从根本上打击洗钱犯罪,一直是各界关注的焦点.2020年12月26日,全国人大会议通过的《刑法修正案(十一)》在一定程度上降低了洗钱罪的判定难度,但仍无法解决对上游七类犯罪以外洗钱犯罪行为的定罪问题,监管层及金融行业在洗钱犯罪方面仍存在着较大压力.本文结合近年来我国洗钱犯罪、判定及上游犯罪等情况,讨论了现有洗钱犯罪定罪中存在的问题.重点探讨了现行洗钱罪上游犯罪认定是否狭隘,《刑法修正案(十一)》对自洗钱行为的判定是否有变化,洗钱罪删除"明知"概念后对洗钱定罪的影响,以及监管机构的职责与权利义务是否相匹配等问题,在此基础上提出了扩容洗钱罪上游犯罪、充实洗钱罪定罪类型、加强监管职权等政策建议.     

Globalization and Outward Foreign Direct Investment

While recent research into foreign direct investment (FDI) has focused on examining the importance of institutions, corruption, money laundering, and tax havens, the role of globalization on FDI has not yet been explored. This research investigates the impacts of globalization on outward FDI. We find that both overall globalization and its economic and social dimensions significantly positively influence outward FDI flows. We also demonstrate that beyond the level of globalization, corruption, money laundering, and the status of a country as a tax haven, cross-country similarity also plays an important role. Accordingly, policies specifically designed to increase the transparency of outward FDI flows should be required to address money laundering and the existence of tax havens.     

Societal trust and corporate tax avoidance

Using an international sample of firms from 25 countries and a country-level index for societal trust, we document that societal trust is negatively associated with tax avoidance, even after controlling for other institutional determinants, such as home country legal institutions and tax system characteristics. We explore the effects of two country-level institutional characteristics—strength of legal institutions and capital market pressure—on the relation between societal trust and tax avoidance. We find that the relation between trust and tax avoidance is less pronounced when the legal institutions in a country are stronger and is more pronounced when the capital market pressure is stronger. Finally, we examine the relation between societal trust and tax evasion, an extreme and illegal form of tax avoidance. We show that societal trust is negatively related to tax evasion and the negative relation is less pronounced when legal institutions are stronger.     

On cross-border bank credit and the U.S. financial crisis transmission to equity markets

This paper examines the role played by cross-border equity, bond and bank credit flows versus international trade in the transmission of the U.S. financial crisis to equity markets worldwide. We estimate vector autoregressive models with exogenous global factors using monthly data on 36 emerging and developed countries. The results from an eclectic methodology that includes causality tests, generalized impulse responses and forecast error variance decompositions indicate that the crisis is mostly transmitted through bank credit rather than portfolio flows and international trade. The results are robust to altering the exogenous versus endogenous vectors of variables, to measuring equity prices in U.S. dollars or local currency, to averaging the data across countries versus averaging the parameters from individual country estimation, and to redefining the start date of the crisis. The findings endorse the use of banking regulation and capital controls as part of the policy toolkit to limit financial vulnerability.     

美国次贷危机传导机理分析

美国次贷危机爆发后,迅速在国内和国际传导蔓延。从国内看,危机先从信贷市场传导至资本市场,又从资本市场回传到信贷市场,并对实体经济造成冲击。从国际看,危机通过金融渠道、贸易渠道和心理渠道向世界各国扩散。分析本次危机的传导机理,对日后有效防范金融危机的产生和蔓延具有理论和现实意义。     

我国反洗钱法律制度存在的主要问题及完善建议

洗钱是严重的经济犯罪行为,为有效打击洗钱犯罪活动,我国参照国际标准,建立了比较完整的反洗钱法律制度体系.但在实际工作中,我国的反洗钱法律制度还存在着一些不足之处,需要继续予以完善.