A constructive proposal on tax

Author: Maya Forstater, on Hiya Maya

Conflating ordinary business practice with aggressive tax avoidance does not help us to understand...where the problems are or how best to respond to them. What we need is a...informed, non-partisan analysis of the issues and data...My constructive proposal is that we need a...process of principled, pragmatic, fact-based enquiry and consensus building on the matter of corporate and government responsibilities in taxation. The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute...has...creat[ed] a Task Force on Illicit Financial Flows, Poverty and Human Rights...Their first report is thoughtful, and was carried out in the spirit of the Ruggie mandate...But their analysis doesn’t get much beyond a balanced but inconclusive reporting of divergent opinions...They don’t...come up with a strong definition...of what is tax abuse...Part of the problem...is that the human rights lens is not in itself useful for untangling the tax debates...I would love to see a follow up to the IBARHI report which involves...tax advisors, companies and tax campaigners, together with economists and human rights lawyers working together...to find common ground of concepts and data which would enable a more informed public debate.[refers to Twitter, Starbucks, Amazon, Vodafone, Verizon, Barclays, HSBC]

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• Related stories: Process of pragmatic inquiry & consensus building on corporate & govt. responsibilities in taxation needed for informed public debate, analyst says
• Related companies: Amazon.com Barclays HSBC Starbucks Twitter Verizon Vodafone

Tax avoidance - an introduction

Author: compiled by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

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