Статья на тему Любая тема, связанная с бухгалтерским или управленческим учётом

Содержание:

1. Original article. 3

The row over taxing tech firms heats up. 3

2. Summary. 6

3. Synopsis. 7

4. Glossary. 11

5. References. 13

Введение:

Заключение:

Фрагмент текста работы:

1. Original article

Has the Vatican cleaned up its
finances?

SMALL EUROPEAN enclaves have given financial
regulators big headaches in the past. Two of them, San Marino and the Vatican,
will be visited by inspectors from Moneyval, the organisation set up to fight
money-laundering and terrorist funding in Europe, in the final days of
September. They will arrive at a delicate moment. Starting next spring, the
European Union (EU) plans to pour about €209bn ($245bn) into Italy in order to
help it recover from the covid-19 pandemic. Even allowing for inflation and
economic growth, that is more than was invested in the country through the
post-war Marshall Plan.

Much of the EU cash will be directed towards the
poorer south of Italy. But that is where Italy’s mafias can most easily steer
funds and contracts their way. Having two inadequately regulated mini-states on
their doorstep would offer them an easy way to launder their gains. On a recent
visit to Rome Catherine De Bolle, the executive director of Europol, warned
that her organisation had detected a rise in organised crime’s penetration of
the European economy and asked EU states to be particularly vigilant with
regard to the recovery funds.

As Moneyval made clear in its last report in 2015, San
Marino has made significant progress towards installing a robust anti-money-laundering
system. But the Holy See looks more problematic, despite Pope Francis’s avowed
intention of overhauling its tangled finances. Two controversies are swirling.
The first has to do with the Vatican Bank, properly known as the Institute for
the Works of Religion (IOR), a lender located within the city state. The second
concerns a judicial investigation into dealings by the Roman Curia, the central
administration of the Catholic church, the effects of which have rippled
abroad.

Inspectors had hoped that the Vatican Bank was no
longer a problem. In a report on the Holy See in 2017, Moneyval concluded that
its anti-money-laundering procedures were “firmly established”. Yet the IOR is
now ensnared in litigation, which ironically arises from the clean-up.

In March a Maltese court authorised three companies
involved in a dispute with the bank to seize assets worth €29.5m— equivalent to
more than three-quarters of the IOR’s profits in 2019. The two Malta-based
investment companies and a Luxembourg-based subsidiary claim that, following a
change of management, the IOR reneged on a commitment to invest €33m in the
purchase and development of the building that once housed the Budapest Stock
Exchange. (The IOR contends that the deal was altered in a way that prejudiced
its interests and claims to have incurred losses and lost profits of up to
€25.2m.)

Another controversy relates to the Curia. Several
Vatican officials, clerical and lay, are being investigated by the city state’s
prosecutors in connection with the purchase of a building in London that was
partly financed using donations from the faithful. Prosecutors are reportedly
considering bringing charges that could include extortion. In October 2019
Vatican gendarmes raided the offices of the department that bought the
property: the Secretariat of State, the pre-eminent branch of the Vatican
bureaucracy, which combines the roles of prime minister’s office and foreign
ministry.

Most damagingly for the Vatican’s international
credibility, the Holy See’s own regulatory authority was also raided in
connection with the case and its director, Tommaso Di Ruzza, put under
investigation. Why remains unclear; no charges have since been brought against
any of the suspects. Now known as the Supervisory and Financial Information
Authority, the Vatican’s regulator combines the roles of banking watchdog and
financial-intelligence unit (FIU). Documents and data seized by the police
included confidential information that foreign FIUs had sent to the Vatican.
The Egmont Group, a network of most of the world’s FIUs, promptly excluded the
Vatican regulator from its information-sharing mechanism and only reinstated it
after the authority had brokered a deal with the prosecutors aimed at
preventing similar episodes in future.