{"id":4369,"date":"2015-06-03T17:39:06","date_gmt":"2015-06-03T16:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=4369"},"modified":"2015-06-03T17:39:06","modified_gmt":"2015-06-03T16:39:06","slug":"theft-on-a-global-scale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=4369","title":{"rendered":"Theft on a global scale"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Corporate tax dodging was front and centre in the most recent election campaign, with leaders on both sides of the political spectrum pledging to take action against tax dodgers.<\/p>\n

 
\nMany of us may think of tax avoidance as a murky and illicit practice \u00e2\u20ac\u201c something done behind closed doors, with suits and ties consulting other suits and ties how to ferret away their millions and further deprive their nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s public coffers.<\/p>\n

 
\nWhile there may be some truth to this image, in reality, many if not most forms of tax dodging are perfectly legal. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a sanctioned form of theft that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bleeding the many in the interests of the few.<\/p>\n

 
\nAnd according to a new report <\/a>from the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) published on Tuesday (June 2), putting a stop to tax-dodging multinational companies will necessitate a radical overhaul of outdated policies on a global scale.<\/p>\n

 
\nTax dodging toll<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nJust how much does tax avoidance affect average people?<\/p>\n

 
\nWe see big headline splashes in the papers about one company or another caught avoiding taxes \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Google, Amazon, Vodafone, and others.<\/p>\n

 
\nBut tax avoidance happens on a much grander and global scale \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and it robs hundreds of billions of pounds from low- and middle-income people, hurting developing countries the most.<\/p>\n

 
\nAccording to the ICRICT report, $100bn per year is taken from developing countries as a direct result of multinational companies dodging taxes.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bTax abuse by multinational corporations increases the tax burden on other taxpayers, violates the corporations\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 civic obligations, robs developed and developing countries of critical resources to fight poverty and fund public services, exacerbates income inequality, and increases developing country reliance on foreign assistance,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 the report notes.<\/p>\n

 
\nAnother earlier report from Christian Aid<\/a> looks beyond the money lost and demonstrates how corporate tax loss costs lives, as it cripples developing countries\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 governments to provide social services to its people, including health provision, education and other modes of support.<\/p>\n

 
\nAccording to its analysis from 2008, 5.6m young children will have died between 2000 and 2015 because of illegal, trade-related tax evasion alone.<\/p>\n

 
\nBecause many of these developing countries rely on foreign aid, the ICRIT report notes, the UK taxpayer is effectively subsidising multinational corporate profits through the foreign aid budget.<\/p>\n

 
\nHere at home, it is estimated that the UK loses nearly \u00c2\u014170bn a year from tax evasion, which, according to the Tax Justice Network<\/a>, comprises more than 50 per cent of the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s total healthcare spend.<\/p>\n

 
\nRadical action needed<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nWhen tax avoidance had risen high on the list of election-time issues, chancellor George Osborne proposed a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bGoogle Tax\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/a> which would purportedly force companies making profits in the UK from diverting them elsewhere to avoid tax.<\/p>\n

 
\nBut the ICRICT report noted that much more needs to be done on a global scale to address what is essentially a global problem.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe report pointed to the principle of \u00e2\u20ac\u015bseparate entity\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 in which a single company can present their operations in different countries as separate entities, and in so doing avoid taxes.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe believe the only effective way to stop [tax] abuse is to treat multinational corporations as single and unified firms and divide the taxable profits between the countries where the income generating activities are located,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 the report noted.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf multinational corporations were taxed as single and unified firms, there would be no transfer pricing because global corporate profits would be consolidated, and thus no profits would be gained or lost through intra-company transactions.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nThe ICRICT report also calls for greater transparency of profits and taxes paid in each country in which a multinational corporation operates, as well as encouraging greater international cooperation in tackling global tax abuse. The report moreover calls on governments to rein in tax incentives which create a global race to the bottom.<\/p>\n

 
\nMost pressing issue of our time<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nUnite assistant general secretary Steve Turner hailed the report for highlighting how dire the problem of global tax abuse is.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bToday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s report just confirms what we here at Unite have been saying for a long time \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that tax-dodging is not simply restricted to the domain of a few corporate baddies,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a pervasive practice that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so entrenched among the elite and many of the profit-crazed global multinationals they run, that within their ranks, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s seen as normal. Even millionaire hedge fund manager Lord Fink admitted as much earlier this year \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Tax avoidance,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0098everybody does it.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bBut at what cost? Our economies struggle under the weight of continued neoliberal austerity while billions of pounds are syphoned off annually to the nearest tax haven by profitable corporations and obscenely wealthy individuals,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Turner added.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bGovernments continue to follow an ideological path to cutting debt leading directly to attacks on our welfare state, charges for our children to attend universities, a failure to invest in both infrastructure and desperately needed housing, cuts to essential public services and underfunding our of NHS.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nTurner agreed with ICRICT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recommendations, noting the scale of the challenge laid before us.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bCorporate theft through tax avoidance continues on the massive, global scale and it will require not only close international cooperation but more importantly, steadfast political will to take on massive corporations that at this point in history wield formidable influence on all our public institutions,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bTackling global tax avoidance may prove to be one of the most difficult \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but remains one of the most pressing \u00e2\u20ac\u201c issues of our time.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Corporate tax dodging was front and centre in the most recent election campaign, with leaders on both sides of the political spectrum pledging to take action against tax dodgers.   Many of us may think of tax avoidance as a murky and illicit practice \u00e2\u20ac\u201c something done behind closed doors, with suits and ties consulting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4370,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[237],"wps_subtitle":"Tackling tax abuse requires radical solutions","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4371,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369\/revisions\/4371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}