New analysis by the Tax Justice Network has revealed the United Kingdom to be the biggest enabler of corporate tax dodging in the world. Betty and I were both shocked!
Statista has the infographic in my following post on the Weal Blog that I am developing to foster a Virtual Commonweal Community in Lake County Ohio. (More about that in the coming days)
The Nations Who are Enabling Tax Dodging
The infographic is followed by a link to an example of how this works.
Then I give a link to the actual report followed by a summary about what it is about.
You may also find this related post on my Lake County Weal Blog relevant:
Only 20 percent of the world’s population lives in the Global North. Despite this, nearly 70 percent of all private wealth, and 74 percent of the world's billionaire wealth, is concentrated there. The five richest billionaires today, according to Forbes, are LVMH chief Bernard Arnault, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, investor Warren Buffet, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
According to the report, as many as seven in ten of the world’s biggest companies are run by a billionaire, or have a main shareholder who is a billionaire. Huge corporations are winning out too, as Oxfam’s analysts explain: “the biggest firms experienced an 89 percent leap in profits in 2021 and 2022. New data shows that 2023 is set to shatter all records as the most profitable yet. Eighty-two percent of these profits are used to benefit shareholders, who are overwhelmingly among the richest people in every society.”
Since Anne knows a lot about the world economy and has also spent time on the ground in the UK, I will be interested in her thoughts on this.
Hi Jack. These realities - the tax havens and the concentration of wealth in the west- have been the case for years. England itself has been a haven for billionaire oligarchs, especially Russian. Little Luxembourg thrives because of its status as a tax haven as do all of those British islands in the Channel and the Caribbean. The Caymans and Bermuda especially are known for a high standard of living with top notch healthcare, good schools etc all paid for by the business at the hundreds of banks there along with tourists on Seven Mile Beach and the duty free shoppers from the cruise ships. We stayed on the opposite side of the island where it was quieter. There are many others, but the Brits, Switzerland, etc have always been tax havens and sites for money laundering. The only surprise on the list for me is The Netherlands. That might be a more recent development since I stopped paying close attention.
ReplyDeleteTangential to your post, story in WaPo about IRS agent who investigates cyber crime, catches terrorists, and restores revenue to taxpayers. URL for those with access or that have a freebie article left: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/cyber-sleuth/
ReplyDeleteRe: billionaires: as it happens, this Sunday's Gospel reading has the famous passage about camels passing through the eyes of needles.
ReplyDeleteThere is a column at America about preaching to the wealthy about the poor
ReplyDeleteThis one?
Deletehttps://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/10/07/preach-wealth-poverty-john-unni-boston-248971
American culture was steeped early and deeply in Calvinist heresy that teaches that you will know the elect by the money and stuff they are rewarded with for their rectitude. Conversely, poverty is a punishment for imprudence, incontinence, and laziness. It all leads to a lot of smugness on the part of the rich and self-loathing on the part of the poor.
Catholicism with its host of saints has always given the lie to this kind of materialist thinking, though my guess is that most Catholics still buy into it at some level.
But I appreciate Fr Unni's effort.
"“the biggest firms experienced an 89 percent leap in profits in 2021 and 2022. New data shows that 2023 is set to shatter all records as the most profitable yet. Eighty-two percent of these profits are used to benefit shareholders, who are overwhelmingly among the richest people in every society.”"
ReplyDeletePersonally, I don't think these numbers paint an accurate picture. Profits going up ~90% in 2021-22 presumably is explained by the economy "snapping back" to near-normal after the COVID-induced recession/depression.
As for 82% of profits benefiting shareholders, we'd need to understand how "benefiting" is defined. If the value of the stock rises, that can be understood as a benefit, even though it's "paper wealth" for the investor until s/he sells the stock. Of course, some investors trade many, many times throughout the day, so every time a stock rises (which may have nothing to do with its profitability), they may sell that stock and make money. Other investors (such as those investing in Silicon Valley startups) hold their investments over a medium-to-long term. These investors are seeking high-growth companies, and want these companies to have high "plowback ratios" (i.e. the company invests its profits back into the company rather than paying dividends to shareholders). I spent a little time this afternoon trying to find data on the average plowback ratio for publicly traded stocks but wasn't able to find anything.