Bericht von Oxfam und Fair Finance Guide International, 27.3.2017 (engl. Originalfassung)
Corporations, including banks, have for a long time been arti cially shifting their pro ts to countries with very low, or zero, corporate tax rates. This accounting trick, used to avoid paying tax, is widespread and is evidenced by corporations registering very low pro ts or even losses in countries that have fairer corporate tax rates.
These tricks deny countries large amounts of potential tax revenue. This in turn increases inequality and poverty, as governments are forced to decide between increasing indirect taxes such as value-added tax, which are paid disproportionately by ordinary people, or cutting public services, which again hits the poorest people hardest, particularly women.
Over the past few decades, the tax contributions of large corporations have been diminishing as governments compete in a ‘race to the bottom’ on corporate taxation. Corporate tax havens are causing the loss of huge amounts of valuable tax revenue, and their use is becoming standard business practice for many companies, including EU banks.
Despite widespread agreement that this behaviour by corporations is destructive, accurate data on the extent to which this is happening has been elusive. This is because corporations have not been required to publish their pro ts or the tax they pay on a country-by-country basis. Instead they produce aggregate accounts that obscure their use of tax havens.
Den vollständigen Bericht finden Sie hier (pdf).