Oxfam Report zur Rolle Großbritanniens, 14.4.2016 (engl. Originalfassung)
A new Oxfam report highlighted this week that because the UK heads up the world's biggest financial secrecy network, spanning its Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories and centered on the City of London, it has an unparallel opportunity to help end the era of tax havens. Luke Gibson, Tax and Inequality Policy Adviser, takes us through how these tax havens are affecting the worlds' poorest and what the UK can do about it.
We revealed this week that the richest 1% of the UK population - made up entirely of millionaires - has captured more than a quarter of the £4 trillion increase in national wealth since 2000, while the poorest continue to struggle to make ends meet. At the same time rich UK individuals avoid £5 billion in tax each year.
Our new report, Ending the Era of Tax Havens, published ahead of Wednesday's Budget, calls for a crackdown on tax havens that enable rich individuals and companies to avoid paying their fair share of tax in the UK and in some of the world's poorest countries. This is one of the key causes of inequality, both in the UK and across the world.
It's often easy to think of offshore paradise islands or snowy 'James Bond' mountains when someone mentions tax havens. But this perception disguises a shocking reality: the City of London is at the heart of the global tax haven network. The UK, if combined with its Overseas Territories (granted, some if which are island paradises) and Crown Dependencies, would sit at the top of the Tax Justice Network's Financial Secrecy Index.
The report shows how the global system of tax havens and tax dodging is one of the main drivers of the inequality crisis. It enables billionaires to pay lower effective tax rates than teachers or secretaries and starves governments of revenue meaning less money for schools and hospitals. Today's report provides further evidence of that in the UK. Tax, like any other inequality issue, is about power. It's about those at the top rigging the rules in their favour. We need to challenge the power and influence of those that have been setting the terms of the tax justice debate for far too long. We must challenge the vested interests at the heart of the rotten global tax system if we're going to see tax justice in our lifetimes.
Den vollständigen Bericht finden Sie hier.