Richard Murphy

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.