It's not me saying that today (although I do, often). It's the Observer, in its editorial.
The comment it makes covers so much ground I may draw on it several times (other commitments permitting). But what is clear is that this paper, at least, has comprehended the issues.
It understands the argument the Tax Justice Network, with a very few others, pioneered that it is tax abuse as much as anything else that causes poverty in Africa. As Kofi Annan has said this week, Africa loses twice as much to tax abuse as it receives in aid.
The Observer realises that for all the bluster it is not clear that this issue will really be tackled by the G7 leaders next month in Northern Ireland (where, unfortunately, I cannot be in attendance despite invitations to be there).
And the paper realises that this is not only a development issue, it is a domestic one too. It rightly castigates Google, making clear that it has made the wrong moral choice, whatever the legal defence for its almost non-payment of tax. And as it says:
We as a society — and that includes business behemoths such as Google — have responsibilities to deal fairly with communities with whom we trade. The pioneers of benevolent capitalism recognised their obligations to help build a decent society from which they profited.
Of course it recognises the difference between tax evasion and avoidance. As it says:
Tax evasion is illegal but tax avoidance, finding legitimate loopholes to avoid paying a fair tithe as a citizen, is rampant. Last year, a Tax Justice Network (TJN) report revealed that the global super-rich have hidden £13tn of wealth offshore.
It gives praise where it is due:
Illumination about the true state of the UK's financial affairs has been helped by the work of the public accounts committee, chaired by Margaret Hodge, an invaluable fiscal watchdog.
And it asks the vital question " what is to be done?" As it saus:
Globally, changes are under way. From July, for instance, in Singapore, laundering profits earned from tax evasion will be a crime, while Luxembourg ends its bank secrecy policy in 2105. More is required. The international tax system is a century old and needs radical redesign, not repair. TJN proposes a unitary tax system of transnational corporations, "to tax them according to where their genuine economic activity is, rather than where their tax advisers pretend it is".
I'm grateful for the hat-tip: I think we are on the right track. The very fact that the combined opposition to such a move is so strong at present suggests that to be the case. The same was true of country-by-country reporting not so long ago.
The Observer is also right:
At home, HMRC requires more, not fewer, resources.
That's glaringly obvious.
But the sting is in the tail:
Serious questions too need to be asked of George Osborne's decisions at the last budget that appear to make it even easier for companies to shift their profit into tax haven subsidiaries. Tax havens should end.
Political will, co-ordinated international action, more public education and tax systems that work for all might give Africa a fresh beginning. We also need to create a new moral consensus that says those companies and individuals who pocket obscene amounts of wealth without paying their civic dues should be denied our custom and treated instead as the freeloading pariahs they are.
Unsurprisingly, I agree. The term "freeloading pariah" seems more than appropriate to me.
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Will this ‘moral crusade’ also include a component regarding governmental waste, abuse, mis-spending, over-spending, etc, as well?
If anyone is freeloading, government, including their enablers, is in the front of the queue with all greasy hands out.
The problem for your case is all oppositions – especially Conservative ones – say there is such over-spending and waste
And when they come to try to get rid of it they can’t find it
How odd, eh?
Mr Murphy,
European nations, including the UK,raise and spend between 40% and 55% of their GDP.
Switzerland, Europe’s most advanced and successful country by some distance, raises and spend only just above 30%. The United States, the world’ greatest nation, also raises an spends a similar amount.
Singapore, Taiwan and Korea, whose fast growth has allowed them to overtake Europe in terms of prosperity, spend betw. 12% and 25% of their GDP.
The evidence is overwhelming. European nations, including the UK, are spending themselves into poverty.
No
Into education
Health
Retirement
Security
And well being
For moist of not yet all
And the last is the key point
The others provide prosperity for a few
And that’s unacceptable
Political parties (Conservative, Liberal, Labour, Democrats, Republicans, SDP, CDU, etc) will never find it because they use it as a campaign slogan and not a true ethos.
Elect individuals/parties that are serious about garbage in/garbage out government and the waste will see the wonderful disinfectant of sunlight for the first time in years.
Mr Murphy,
You are missing the point.
Switzerland, the United States, Singapore, Korea, etc. have far higher levels of prosperity than ANY European nation, and achieve this while taxing their citizens significantly less.
They also have significantly higher educational achievements.
They have far better security and safety positions. In fact the United States underwrite single-handedly the entire world’s security, including that of Europe which is financially so bankrupt that it cannot even afford to defend itself.
Numbers do not lie.
Oh yes they do
GDP is an appalling measure of prosperity – pollution and high divorce rates add to it
And so does war
And it does not consider inequality
Deliberately, I am sure
MRubio
I think you have missed the plot.
The US has been running a massive Govt deficit for the past 4 years. As a result the US economy has been taking off. It is now, unlike EU, out of deficit & growing each year.
In SOME respects the US is more socialist, at least more Keynesian, than the EU.
Dear Mr William,
I believe you commit the common mistake by international observers to look only at the Federal fiscal budget, but to omit the sates’ and cities.
Whilst the Federal government has been running a moderately counter-cyclical deficit, this has been to a large extent offset by states and municipalities, which have been running highly pro-cyclical fiscal programs. The net result has been moderately counter-cyclical in 2009 but at best neutral since 2011.
The United States’ success relatively rapid emergence from European-style depression is a direct result of allowing the market to re-price and flush out previous excesses (mostly in the real estate sector) and re-allocate resources to productive sectors.