The May Taxcast from the Tax Justice Network

Posted on May 26 2016

In the May 2016 Taxcast: What is corruption? Well, that's a political question, and the answer depends on who you ask.

We discuss the anti-corruption summit in the City of London, the world's capital of sleaze and ask if the sun ever set on the colonial era and the idea that corruption is a poor country issue.

We explore extortive corruption versus collusive corruption and look at a new Poll which indicates for the first time the vast gulf between what the British people consider corrupt, and what has become a 'normal' way of doing business and politics. The overlap between the public and private spheres raises serious questions about democracy — and the nature of global fraud.

Featuring: Nicholas Shaxson of Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and The Men Who Stole the World, Professor Vincenzo Ruggiero of the Crime and Conflict Research Centre at MiddleSex University, Will McMahon of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Professor David Whyte of Liverpool University and editor of the book 'How Corrupt is Britain?', plus a brief appearance from British Prime Minster David Cameron and President Buhari of Nigeria.

Full details of guests and further reading are available here: http://www.taxjustice.net/2016/05/22/tax-justice-network-may-2016-podcast-the-anti-corruption-summit-whos-the-most-corrupt/

 

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2 Responses

  1. Gareth says:
    May 26 2016 at 2:33 pm

    Richard

    Very interesting

    Could I suggest two topics for the June podcast or perhaps to be covered in some of your threads here?

    1. The government we units and is currently considering devaluing British Steel pensions by using CPI rather than RPI for indexing pension increases.

    Should the government consider using CPI instead of RPI for existing and future public sector pensions including MPs to reduce the cost of these schemes on the public purse, which as you know are not included in government accounts and represent a massive commitment for future generations to pay these pensions.

    2. All surveys show a movement in the private sector from defined benefit to defined contribution schemes. The remaining defined benefit schemes are often in deficits. From the above I think we can assume that businesses gave assumed that in this new own interest environment that the operation of defined benefit schemes are un affordable and have therefore moved to defined contribution schemes.

    How is the public sector able to continue to afford defined benefit schemes?

    Is it fair that they continue to run such schemes when these schemes are now largely denied to private sector workers?