Author: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Committee on Fiscal Affairs
Publisher: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development ; [Washington, D.C. : OECD Publications and Information Centre
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 124
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Book Description
Compilation of four related studies.
Author: Ronen Palan
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801468566
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
From the Cayman Islands and the Isle of Man to the Principality of Liechtenstein and the state of Delaware, tax havens offer lower tax rates, less stringent regulations and enforcement, and promises of strict secrecy to individuals and corporations alike. In recent years government regulators, hoping to remedy economic crisis by diverting capital from hidden channels back into taxable view, have undertaken sustained and serious efforts to force tax havens into compliance. In Tax Havens, Ronen Palan, Richard Murphy, and Christian Chavagneux provide an up-to-date evaluation of the role and function of tax havens in the global financial system-their history, inner workings, impact, extent, and enforcement. They make clear that while, individually, tax havens may appear insignificant, together they have a major impact on the global economy. Holding up to $13 trillion of personal wealth-the equivalent of the annual U.S. Gross National Product-and serving as the legal home of two million corporate entities and half of all international lending banks, tax havens also skew the distribution of globalization's costs and benefits to the detriment of developing economies. The first comprehensive account of these entities, this book challenges much of the conventional wisdom about tax havens. The authors reveal that, rather than operating at the margins of the world economy, tax havens are integral to it. More than simple conduits for tax avoidance and evasion, tax havens actually belong to the broad world of finance, to the business of managing the monetary resources of individuals, organizations, and countries. They have become among the most powerful instruments of globalization, one of the principal causes of global financial instability, and one of the large political issues of our times.
Author: Paul Beckett
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317210921
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 346
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Book Description
This book sails in uncharted waters. It takes a human rights-based approach to tax havens, and is a detailed analysis of structures and the laws that generate and support these. It makes plain the unscrupulous or merely indifferent ways in which, using tax havens, businesses and individuals systematically undermine and for all practical purposes eliminate access to remedies under international human rights law. It exposes as abusive of human rights a complex structural web of trusts, companies, partnerships, foundations, nominees and fiduciaries; secrecy, immunity and smoke screens. It also lays bare the cynical manipulation by tax havens of traditional legal forms and conventions, and the creation of entities so bizarre and chimeric that they defy classification. Yet from the perspective of the tax havens themselves, these are entirely legitimate; the product of duly enacted domestic laws. This book is not a work of investigative journalism in the style of the Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of The Panama Papers, exposing political or financial corruption, money laundering or the financing of terrorism. All those elements are present of course, but the focus is on international human rights and how tax havens do not merely facilitate but actively connive at their breach. The tax havens are compromising the international human rights legal continuum.
Author: Gabriel Zucman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022624556X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 142
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Book Description
We are well aware of the rise of the 1% as the rapid growth of economic inequality has put the majority of the world’s wealth in the pockets of fewer and fewer. One much-discussed solution to this imbalance is to significantly increase the rate at which we tax the wealthy. But with an enormous amount of the world’s wealth hidden in tax havens—in countries like Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Cayman Islands—this wealth cannot be fully accounted for and taxed fairly. No one, from economists to bankers to politicians, has been able to quantify exactly how much of the world’s assets are currently hidden—until now. Gabriel Zucman is the first economist to offer reliable insight into the actual extent of the world’s money held in tax havens. And it’s staggering. In The Hidden Wealth of Nations, Zucman offers an inventive and sophisticated approach to quantifying how big the problem is, how tax havens work and are organized, and how we can begin to approach a solution. His research reveals that tax havens are a quickly growing danger to the world economy. In the past five years, the amount of wealth in tax havens has increased over 25%—there has never been as much money held offshore as there is today. This hidden wealth accounts for at least $7.6 trillion, equivalent to 8% of the global financial assets of households. Fighting the notion that any attempts to vanquish tax havens are futile, since some countries will always offer more advantageous tax rates than others, as well the counter-argument that since the financial crisis tax havens have disappeared, Zucman shows how both sides are actually very wrong. In The Hidden Wealth of Nations he offers an ambitious agenda for reform, focused on ways in which countries can change the incentives of tax havens. Only by first understanding the enormity of the secret wealth can we begin to estimate the kind of actions that would force tax havens to give up their practices. Zucman’s work has quickly become the gold standard for quantifying the amount of the world’s assets held in havens. In this concise book, he lays out in approachable language how the international banking system works and the dangerous extent to which the large-scale evasion of taxes is undermining the global market as a whole. If we are to find a way to solve the problem of increasing inequality, The Hidden Wealth of Nations is essential reading.
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264755020
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 68
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Book Description
Unlocking what drives tax morale – the intrinsic willingness to pay tax – can greatly assist governments in the design of tax policies and their administration, particularly in developing countries where compliance rates are low. This report builds on previous OECD research to identify some of the key socio-economic and institutional drivers of tax morale across developing countries, and seeks to test for evidence of the social contract by examining the impact of public services on tax morale. It also uses new data on tax certainty as an entry point to explore tax morale in businesses, where existing research is very limited. Finally, the report identifies a range of factors related to the tax system that may affect business decision making, how they vary across regions, and suggests some areas for future research. Overall, the report provides a range of suggestions for further work, and how tax morale considerations can be integrated into holistic tax compliance strategies.
Author: Thomas Pogge
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019103861X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 383
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Book Description
This book addresses sixteen different reform proposals that are urgently needed to correct the fault lines in the international tax system as it exists today, and which deprive both developing and developed countries of critical tax resources. It offers clear and concrete ideas on how the reforms can be achieved and why they are important for a more just and equitable global system to prevail. The key to reducing the tax gap and consequent human rights deficit in poor countries is global financial transparency. Such transparency is essential to curbing illicit financial flows that drain less developed countries of capital and tax revenues, and are an impediment to sustainable development. A major break-through for financial transparency is now within reach. The policy reforms outlined in this book not only advance tax justice but also protect human rights by curtailing illegal activity and making available more resources for development. While the reforms are realistic they require both political and an informed and engaged civil society that can put pressure on governments and policy makers to act.
Author: Charles A. Dainoff
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793619921
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 191
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Book Description
In Outlaw Paradise, the author argues that countries become tax havens as a conscious economic development strategy. These countries do not have the natural resources or the population to pursue more traditional economic development strategies, but they do have the ability to write and implement laws that create a virtual resource: banking secrecy. These countries are able to carry out this strategy because they tend to be well-governed, stable, and relatively wealthy, making them attractive partners for the international banking, legal, and accounting firms that drive offshore finance. The qualities tax havens possess also enable them to calculate that the benefits they reap from pursuing this strategy outweigh any penalties assessed by anti-tax haven international collective action activities, such as the naming and shaming campaigns of 2000 and 2009. The author argues that, while the tax havens seem to be complying with the campaigns from a juridical standpoint, actual financial behavior is unaffected. The author further argues that this outcome is predetermined given the nature of international regimes and the history of the concept of sovereignty, as well as tax haven relationships to both. Finally, Outlaw Paradise offers policy prescriptions and surveys recent developments resulting from the Panama Papers.
Author: Sebastian Beer
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 148436399X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 45
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Book Description
This paper reviews the rapidly growing empirical literature on international tax avoidance by multinational corporations. It surveys evidence on main channels of corporate tax avoidance including transfer mispricing, international debt shifting, treaty shopping, tax deferral and corporate inversions. Moreover, it performs a meta analysis of the extensive literature that estimates the overall size of profit shifting. We find that the literature suggests that, on average, a 1 percentage-point lower corporate tax rate will expand before-tax income by 1 percent—an effect that is larger than reported as the consensus estimate in previous surveys and tends to be increasing over time. The literature on tax avoidance still has several unresolved puzzles and blind spots that require further research.
Author: Dorian L. Peters
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781634837750
Category : BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
Languages : en
Pages : 171
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Book Description
Congress and the Obama Administration have expressed interest in addressing multinational corporations' ability to shift profits into low- and no-tax countries with little corresponding change in business operations. Several factors appear to be driving this interest. Economists have estimated that profit shifting results in significant tax revenue losses annually, implying that reducing the practice could help address deficit and debt concerns. Profit shifting and base erosion are also believed to distort the allocation of capital as investment decisions are overly influenced by taxes. Fairness concerns have also been raised. If multinational corporations can avoid or reduce their taxes, other taxpayers (including domestically focused businesses and individuals) may perceive the tax system as unfair. At the same time, policymakers are also concerned that American corporations could be unintentionally harmed if careful consideration is not given to the proper way to reduce profit shifting. This book is intended to assist Congress as it considers what, if any, action to curb profit shifting. This book discusses the methods used for shifting profits only to the extent that it is necessary for interpreting the data or discussing policy options. In addition, this book addresses tax havens; basic concepts and policy issues of U.S. international corporate taxation; and reforms of U.S. international taxation.
Author: Jannick Damgaard
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513521527
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 54
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Book Description
Macro statistics on foreign direct investment (FDI) are blurred by offshore centers with enormous inward and outward investment positions. This paper uses several new data sources, both macro and micro, to estimate the global FDI network while disentangling real investment and phantom investment and allocating real investment to ultimate investor economies. We find that phantom investment into corporate shells with no substance and no real links to the local economy may account for almost 40 percent of global FDI. Ignoring phantom investment and allocating real investment to ultimate investors increases the explanatory power of standard gravity variables by around 25 percent.
