#91 Immigration as reparations
#90 The Corporate Tax Haven Index
#92 Ethical accountancy

[taxcast id=”10624304″]

In this month’s July 2019 podcast we speak with multiple award winning Suketu Mehta about his new book: This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto on the fastest way to fix global inequalities and injustices. (A UK version of the book will be published in August 2019.) Plus:

  • we discuss France’s 3% digital tax which has so angered the US president and yet another sign of the collapse of the supposed international consensus on tax rules and which countries have the power to dominate those agreements.
  • And, we discuss the high tensions with Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and how expensive navies are potentially protecting privately owned ships which are busy minimising their tax bills using flags of convenience.

Featuring: Suketu Mehta author of This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto, and John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network. Produced and presented by the Tax Justice Network’s Naomi Fowler.

“No, colonialism isn’t over! It got replaced by the incredibly inequitable system of world trade and particularly tax havens…it’s a giant transfer upwards. We have this system of global corporate colonialism, which is actually as exploitative as the crown colonialism that it replaced. I believe that countries are responsible for their history, just like individual human beings are responsible for the crimes they commit. So what I am calling for is immigration as reparations, the west stole the future of the poor countries. And now you’ve desperate and starving masses and they want to come to the west, not to invade and conquer and loot and pillage, but to work.”

~ Suketu Mehta, author of This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto

Original post available here.

Jargon
Secrecy Jurisdiction

A tax haven or secrecy jurisdiction is a place that deliberately provides an escape route for people or entities who live or operate elsewhere. They shield them from whatever taxes, criminal laws, financial regulations, transparency or other constraints they don’t like. Ordinary people whose lives are affected by tax haven laws are not consulted on these laws because they live in other countries: they have no say in how those laws are made, thus undermining their democratic rights.

Tax Haven

A tax haven or secrecy jurisdiction is a place that deliberately provides an escape route for people or entities who live or operate elsewhere. They shield them from whatever taxes, criminal laws, financial regulations, transparency or other constraints they don’t like. Ordinary people whose lives are affected by tax haven laws are not consulted on these laws because they live in other countries: they have no say in how those laws are made, thus undermining their democratic rights.

Offshore

A tax haven or secrecy jurisdiction is a place that deliberately provides an escape route for people or entities who live or operate elsewhere. They shield them from whatever taxes, criminal laws, financial regulations, transparency or other constraints they don’t like. Ordinary people whose lives are affected by tax haven laws are not consulted on these laws because they live in other countries: they have no say in how those laws are made, thus undermining their democratic rights.

5 Rs of Tax

Revenue, to fund public services, infrastructure and administration.
Redistribution, to curb inequalities between individuals and between groups.
Repricing, to limit public “bads” such as tobacco consumption and carbon emissions.
Representation, to build healthier democratic processes, recognising that higher reliance of government. spending on tax revenues is strongly linked to higher quality of governance and political representation.
Reparation, to redress the historical legacies of empire and ecological damage.

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