Matt Collin

Matt Collin

@mattcollin.bsky.social

Development economist working at the @taxobservatory.bsky.social‬ in Paris. Illicit finance, tax evasion, and foreign aid. Techno DJ when no one is looking. www.matthewcollin.com https://datadarkly.substack.com/

1.9K followers465 following4.8K posts

Matt Collin reposted

Matt Ford
@mford.bsky.social

Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

I'm a development econ guy and I don't think I'd be that happy losing my job to the AIs!

Zach Weinersmith@zachweinersmith.bsky.social

Example diff: I once asked a developmental econ friend how he'd feel if AI 100% outmoded him. He thought for a few seconds and then said "that'd be great because it'd help a lot of poor people!" I don't think many artists feel that way. Because we're concerned with personal expression/lifestyle.

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

Love it:

Matt Collin@mattcollin.bsky.social

Got to love the French university position of "We didn't invest in climate control, so please don't come to work and die of heatstroke, we much prefer that you die of heatstroke at home"

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

One thing I've found that Claude Code is good at is very quickly showing me visually something my 42 year old brain strugles to understand from its sometimes challenging prose

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

New research out with @jeannebomare.bsky.social and Eva Nappert We examine the impact of Companies Houses's new ID verification rollout, which intends to require all directors and beneficial owners of UK companies to verify their identity either directly with CH or through a third party provider

International Tax Observatory@taxobservatory.bsky.social

New paper: Enforcement & Evasion in Beneficial Ownership Registers 🇬🇧 #UK made ID verification mandatory for company directors & beneficial owners in 2025. Compliance jumped 46 pp, but at least 33K companies used a legal loophole to delay checks by a year. 🔗 taxobservatory.world/publication/...

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Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

When we rank ACSPs by their "riskiness" (what share of affiliated companies got struck off or moved to CH's default address, we find a pretty extreme concentration in ID verification behavior. The top decile of risky ACSPs have performed roughly 40% of verifications of companies with foreign-BOs!!

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

That means that we've entrusted companies who many not have the best track record of which clients they work with, with safeguarding the validity of the Companies House register!

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

New research out with @jeannebomare.bsky.social and Eva Nappert We examine the impact of Companies Houses's new ID verification rollout, which intends to require all directors and beneficial owners of UK companies to verify their identity either directly with CH or through a third party provider

International Tax Observatory@taxobservatory.bsky.social

New paper: Enforcement & Evasion in Beneficial Ownership Registers 🇬🇧 #UK made ID verification mandatory for company directors & beneficial owners in 2025. Compliance jumped 46 pp, but at least 33K companies used a legal loophole to delay checks by a year. 🔗 taxobservatory.world/publication/...

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Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

Companies have 2 ways they can verify the identity of their officers: either directly with CH (free, but requires biometric ID) or through a third part "Authorized Corporate Service Provider" With the latter - another company tells CH that they checked your documents and everything looks ok

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

Now, ACSPs are AML regulated, so in theory they should be doing a good job But not all of them have a history of doing a good job In fact many have formed, or worked with companies that have been involuntarily struck off or caught by Companies House for lying about their place of business

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

New research out with @jeannebomare.bsky.social and Eva Nappert We examine the impact of Companies Houses's new ID verification rollout, which intends to require all directors and beneficial owners of UK companies to verify their identity either directly with CH or through a third party provider

International Tax Observatory@taxobservatory.bsky.social

New paper: Enforcement & Evasion in Beneficial Ownership Registers 🇬🇧 #UK made ID verification mandatory for company directors & beneficial owners in 2025. Compliance jumped 46 pp, but at least 33K companies used a legal loophole to delay checks by a year. 🔗 taxobservatory.world/publication/...

View full thread
Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

We find that many companies that would have had to undergo ID verification because their filing window falled on or after Nov 18, just file a confirmation statement early, effectively resetting the clock for a year Depending on the method used, between 5-13% of companies close to the policy window

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

Those companies will have to come into compliance by November of *this* year, but if you are worried that some companies are engaging in money laundering or fraud or serious tax evasion, then those companies bought themselves a full year of freedom from scrutiny

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

New research out with @jeannebomare.bsky.social and Eva Nappert We examine the impact of Companies Houses's new ID verification rollout, which intends to require all directors and beneficial owners of UK companies to verify their identity either directly with CH or through a third party provider

International Tax Observatory@taxobservatory.bsky.social

New paper: Enforcement & Evasion in Beneficial Ownership Registers 🇬🇧 #UK made ID verification mandatory for company directors & beneficial owners in 2025. Compliance jumped 46 pp, but at least 33K companies used a legal loophole to delay checks by a year. 🔗 taxobservatory.world/publication/...

View full thread
Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

We find significant compliance effects: beneficial owner-directors of companies 'caught' by the policy were around 46% more likely to have verified their identity roughly six months later

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

But we also find that many companies used a loophole in the company filing process which allowed them to push their deadline back for nearly a year Companies normally file their confirmation statement on a yearly basis But they can find it earlier than their filing window, even without new info

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

New research out with @jeannebomare.bsky.social and Eva Nappert We examine the impact of Companies Houses's new ID verification rollout, which intends to require all directors and beneficial owners of UK companies to verify their identity either directly with CH or through a third party provider

International Tax Observatory@taxobservatory.bsky.social

New paper: Enforcement & Evasion in Beneficial Ownership Registers 🇬🇧 #UK made ID verification mandatory for company directors & beneficial owners in 2025. Compliance jumped 46 pp, but at least 33K companies used a legal loophole to delay checks by a year. 🔗 taxobservatory.world/publication/...

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

Directors (inc beneficial owners who were directors) had to verify their ID if the company's confirmation statement was due on or after Nov 18, 2025 So we use the confirmation statement date - measured *prior* to the announcement of the policy data to implement a regression discontinuity design

Matt Collin reposted

KetAnthropic JoshAI
@ketanjoshi.co

Who would like to guess why UK, US and European media outlets are not publishing 3,000 articles per minute about this www.dukechronicle.com/article/duke...

dukechronicle.com‘Insane data’: Duke professor Dan Ariely accused of additional research fraudNew evidence released Monday shows that Dan Ariely, professor of business administration in the Fuqua School of Business, likely tampered with or fabricated data in an influential research paper from ...

Matt Collin reposted

Belinda Archibong
@belindaarch.bsky.social

ICYMI, the new “America First Global Health Strategy” has turned the US approach to global health into a series of transactional, bilateral agreements with potentially devastating consequences for global health security as we write in our Brookings piece here: www.brookings.edu/articles/the...

brookings.eduThe new 'America First Global Health Strategy' could erode years of progress under PEPFAR | BrookingsThe authors unpack the impacts the new "America First Global Health Strategy" will have when it comes to HIV/AIDS mitigation in African countries.
Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

RIP you absolute Legend

Guardian US@us.theguardian.com

Tim Curry, the versatile performer of screen and stage, who made his name as the flamboyant Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show, has died aged 80. Read more: www.theguardian.com/film/2026/au...

Matt Collin reposted

Stephen Abbott Pugh
@stephenabbottpugh.bsky.social

EU Commission may open new cases against states lagging on beneficial ownership registry access www.amlintelligence.com/2026/08/news... News story by @cgboffa6.bsky.social for AML Intelligence #beneficialownership #legitimateinterest #6AMLD

amlintelligence.comNEWS: EU Commission may open new cases against states lagging on registry access - AML IntelligenceThe European Commission said it may open a case against countries that have not yet completed a framework to grant journalists and civil society organisations access to national beneficial ownership r...
Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

Europeans: Beneficial ownership data is a massive privacy risk! We have to make it hard to access UK: We have an public streaming API that will let you see ownership changes in real time

Stephen Abbott Pugh@stephenabbottpugh.bsky.social

Watch UK beneficial ownership information change in real time  as open, standardised data bods.stream #beneficialownership #openstandards #opendata #UBO #datastandards #interoperability #opensource

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

I mean, good lord, it's 104 degrees outside right now. No one wants to be outside, air conditioning or not. The worry that occasional air con use is going to destroy the fabric of society is really very silly

The Debate - France 24 @f24debate.france24.com

The ‘big worry’ of universal air conditioning: As people rely more on constant indoor cooling, @lloydalter.bsky.social advocates for finding a middle ground to ease the thermal shock between indoor and outdoor temperatures. More on #F24Debate ➡️https://go.france24.com/4V2Q

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

Every morning my 18 month old gets up and demands that I put on a vinyl record (by pointing to her ears) She only accepts vinyl music And for the past two weeks, she only accepts this record by Ghanian musician Gyedu-Blay Ambolley. Before that it was a Bowie obsession.

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

Got to love the French university position of "We didn't invest in climate control, so please don't come to work and die of heatstroke, we much prefer that you die of heatstroke at home"

Matt Collin reposted

Zachary Tvarozna
@shadyshores.bsky.social

18 months in the making! My conclusion forever will be Russia's A7 was never entirely a cryptocurrency network and relied on captured states. Thanks 2 everyone who supported and hugest s/o to the OSC for turning this hypothesis into an investigation. www.opensourcecentre.org/research/the...

opensourcecentre.orgThe Big ShorOSC and TRM Labs reveal how the Kremlin-backed A7 Network used the international correspondent banking system and Kyrgyzstan to likely move billions of dollars of Russian payments through the global f...
Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

"We believe these people are circumventing sanctions" and "We are not suggesting any wrongdoing here" in the exact same paragraph is a hell of a way to start a report

Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social
The Guardian@theguardian.com

Top chefs back Andy Burnham for prime minister to cut VAT on hospitality

theguardian.comTop chefs back Andy Burnham for prime minister to cut VAT on hospitalityTom Kerridge says ‘whole of hospitality’ should get behind Burnham who has called for VAT cut from 20% to 10% Chefs and restaurateurs have said they hope Andy Burnham becomes prime minister after he backed calls to cut VAT tax for hospitality businesses. Burnham, who is standing as the Labour candidate in the Makerfield byelection and is expected to launch a challenge to Keir Starmer’s leadership if he wins, has called for the rate to be cut from 20% to 10% to be in line with European rates. Continue reading...
Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

Today was in the unique position of spotting Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame in the toy section of a department store and then having my toddler daughter have an absolutely epic breakdown right next to him and his family

Matt Collin reposted

Anti-Corruption Data Collective
@acdatacollective.bsky.social

ACDC sat down with @60minutes.bsky.social for last night's episode, explaining that military insiders accused of illegal profiteering on Polymarket are not isolated cases but part of a systemic problem. www.cbsnews.com/news/predict...

cbsnews.comOnline prediction market traders make millions betting on U.S. military operationsPrediction market users are profiting from bets on war. Analysts say suspiciously timed bets, and the high win rates of wagers on military outcomes , are likely signs of insider trading.
Anti-Corruption Data Collective@acdatacollective.bsky.social

Great to see insider trading on military event prediction markets getting the primetime treatment from @60minutes.bsky.social. Last month we revealed that 52% of long shot bets on military outcomes on Polymarket are successful, way over the platform average. acdatacollective.org/work/insider...

acdatacollective.orgInsider Risks in Polymarket Political Markets – ACDC

Matt Collin reposted

Sophie E. Hill
@sophieehill.bsky.social

Step 1: Run regression of [scary Y] on [trendy X] using observational data Step 2: Magically "adjust" for the 20 bajillion imperfectly-measured confounders Step 3: Wait for a credulous journalist to write it up as causal www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

theguardian.comArts and cultural engagement ‘linked to slower pace of biological ageing’Research from UCL suggests visiting art galleries or museums, singing and painting can help improve health outcomes
Matt Collin
@mattcollin.bsky.social

Purported UFOs on the moon Going to love seeing the conspiracy theorists who think the government was covering up UFO sightings but also think tha the moon landing was faked try to reconcile this

Matt Collin reposted

FT Edit
@ftedit.ft.com

Long-shot bets on military action made on Polymarket have a win-rate almost four times higher than the platform average, according to new research, raising fears that wagers placed by insiders could reveal classified information. Read the full story on #FTEdit 👉 ft.trib.al/Zqokt5y