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Article

8 Nov 2017

Author:
Gabriel Zucman, University of California, Berkeley, in Guardian (UK)

Commentary: Multinationals' tax avoidance drives decrease in public funding and higher taxes on lower-income households

"The desperate inequality behind global tax dodging", 8 Nov 2017

...Our research shows that six European tax havens alone... siphon off a total of €350bn every year...Globally... more than €600bn is artificially shifted by multinationals to the world’s tax havens each year.

Who loses? By and large, the US and the bigger European countries, where most of the multinationals’ workers and consumers are located. 

... [T]he taxes multinationals dodge have to be compensated for by higher taxes on lower-income households... In the absence of higher taxes, public spending has to fall. The revenue EU countries lose to tax havens represents the equivalent of about half of public spending on higher education. 

...The veil of secrecy that used to surround the activities of tax havens has begun to lift. Yet much of the data is still missing. ..It is impossible to properly fight tax evasion in such statistical fog.

...A number of big banks, such as Credit Suisse and HSBC, have been fined by the US. But...Threatening to withdraw banking licences would be a stronger deterrent.

[Also refers to Google]

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