Stalwart campaigner Richard Murphy has been a thorn in the
side of tax avoiders everywhere for more than a decade. But
this year has seen Murphy go from an activist exposing the ills
of the global tax system to a mainstream influence on its
direction. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then
they fight you, then you win.
Murphy is the architect of country-by-country reporting
(CBCR) and his most significant achievement came this year when
the G8 and OECD endorsed a form of CBCR.
"Country-by-country reporting has crossed the Rubicon,"
Murphy says. "We now have the OECD saying it will happen."
Murphy has been advising Margaret Hodge of the Public
Accounts Committee in her interrogations of multinational
companies’ tax affairs. His work on the UK tax gap
has showed HM Revenue & Customs’ estimates may
just be the tip of the iceberg. He has written two Bills for
Labour member of Parliament Michael Meacher. He advised on the
general anti-abuse rule. And he helped prevent the devolution
of corporate tax powers to Northern Ireland, which could have
seen the country join its southern neighbour in a race to the
bottom.
In August, Murphy split from the Tax Justice Network, which
he co-founded, so that he could concentrate on different
projects, but with his tireless work over the past decade
finally coming to fruition, he has been propelled into the Top
10 most influential people in tax.