Tax Havens and International Human Rights

Tax Havens and International Human Rights
Author: Paul Beckett
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2017-10-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317210921

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.

Tax Havens

Tax Havens
Author: Ronen Palan
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2013-02-01
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0801468566

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.

Bridging the Tax Gap

Bridging the Tax Gap
Author: Max Sawicky
Publisher:
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2005
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Offering thorough understanding of the crisis facing federal tax administration and suggesting practical approach to solving issues that have arisen.

Tax Haven Abuses

Tax Haven Abuses
Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Publisher:
Total Pages: 1818
Release: 2006
Genre: Banking law
ISBN:

Combating Fiscal Fraud and Empowering Regulators

Combating Fiscal Fraud and Empowering Regulators
Author: Brigitte Unger
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2021
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0198854722

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Combating Fiscal Fraud and Empowering Regulators analyzes the impact of new international tax regulations on the scope and scale of tax evasion, tax avoidance, and money laundering. These are analyzed through an ecosystem framework in which, similar to a natural ecosystem, new tax regulations appear as heavy shocks to the tax ecosystem, to which the 'species' such as countries, corporations, and tax experts will react by looking for new loopholes and niches of survival. By analyzing the impact of tax reforms from different perspectives--a legal, political science, accounting, and economic one--one may derive an assessment of the reforms and policy recommendations for an improved international tax system. The ultimate goal is to combat fiscal fraud and empower regulators, in that line, this volume is intended for a broad audience that seeks to know more about the latest state of the art in the realm of taxation from a multidisciplinary perspective. The money involved amounts to billions in unpaid taxes that could be better used for stopping hunger, guaranteeing education, and safeguarding biodiversity, hence making this world a better one. Regulators can see this book as a guiding light of what has happened in the past forty years, and how the world has and will continue to change as a result of it. Combating Fiscal Fraud and Empowering Regulators is also a warning about new emerging tax loopholes, such as freeports or golden passports and visas, where residency can be bought in tax havens, even within the European Union. The main message is that inequality can and has to be reduced substantially and that this can be achieved through a well-working international tax system that eliminates secrecy, opaqueness, and tax havens.

Global Tax Fairness

Global Tax Fairness
Author: Thomas Pogge
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2016-02-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 019103861X

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.

The Uncounted

The Uncounted
Author: Alex Cobham
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020-02-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781509536016

What we count matters - and in a world where policies and decisions are underpinned by numbers, statistics and data, if you’re not counted, you don’t count. Alex Cobham argues that systematic gaps in economic and demographic data not only lead us to understate a wide range of damaging inequalities, but also to actively exacerbate them. He shows how, in statistics ranging from electoral registers to household surveys and census data, people from disadvantaged groups, such as indigenous populations, women, and disabled people, are consistently underrepresented. This further marginalizes them, reducing everything from their political power to their weight in public spending decisions. Meanwhile, corporations and the ultra-rich seek ever greater complexity and opacity in their financial affairs - and when their wealth goes untallied, it means they can avoid regulation and taxation. This brilliantly researched book shows how what we do and don’t count is not a neutral or ‘technical’ question: the numbers that rule our world are skewed by raw politics. Cobham forensically lays bare how these issues strike at the heart of our democracy, entrenching inequality and injustice – and outlines what we can do about it.

Treasure Islands

Treasure Islands
Author: Nicholas Shaxson
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 61
Release: 2012
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0099541726

"Dirty money, tax havens and the offshore system describe the ugliest and most secretive chapter in the history of global economic affairs. Tax havens have declared war on honest, law-abiding people around the world. Wealthy individuals hold over ten trillion dollars offshore. Tax havens are the most important single reason why poor people and poor countries stay poor. Britain and the United States are the world's two most important tax havens. Tax havens now lie at the very heart of the global economy. Over half of world trade, and most international lending, is processed through them. Tax havens have been instrumental in nearly every major economic event, in every big financial scandal, and in every financial crisis since the 1970s, including the latest global economic crisis. "Treasure Islands" show how this happens and reveal what the economics text books will not tell you."

Harmful Tax Competition An Emerging Global Issue

Harmful Tax Competition An Emerging Global Issue
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Total Pages: 82
Release: 1998-05-19
Genre:
ISBN: 9264162941

Tax competition in the form of harmful tax practices can distort trade and investment patterns, erode national tax bases and shift part of the tax burden onto less mobile tax bases. The Report emphasises that governments must intensify their cooperative actions to curb harmful tax practices.

Options to Improve Tax Compliance and Reform Tax Expenditures

Options to Improve Tax Compliance and Reform Tax Expenditures
Author: United States. Congress. Joint Committee on Taxation
Publisher: Joint Committee on Taxation
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2005
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Describes proposals to to reduce the size of the Federal tax gap by curtaling tax shelters, closing unintended loopholes, addressing other areas of noncompliance with current tax law, and reforming certain areas of tax expenditures.