GATJ-PublicServices_AFRIC-FINAL trial lorez2

15-06-2017 | In de week van 19-23 roept de Global Alliance for Tax Justice op tot eerlijke belastingen. Door legale en illegale belastingontduiking lopen ontwikkelingslanden veel inkomsten mis, die ten goede zouden kunnen komen aan publieke voorzieningen, zoals onderwijs.

 


The Global Alliance for Tax Justice campaigns through five regional networks

The Global Alliance for Tax Justice is a growing movement of civil society organisations and activists, including trade unions, united in campaigning for greater transparency, democratic oversight and redistribution of wealth in national and global tax systems.

We comprise the five regional networks of Africa, Latin America, Asia-Australia, North America and Europe, which collectively represent hundreds of organisations.

We’ve joined together because wealthy people, banks and multinational corporations have built a sophisticated system of secretive international financial centres (or tax havens) supported by armies of accountants, lawyers and lobbyists, in order to deliberately pay less and less tax on their profits and wealth. Yet, this elite group is entirely dependent on publicly-funded infrastructure and institutions and publicly-educated workforces to make their money.

Such systemic tax avoidance (both legal and illegal) has led ordinary people to lose out as wealth flows outwards from the public and into the private hands of the few. This distorts economies, undermines democracy and deprives people of the vital public services we need to live.

Tax Justice for Public Services: Global Action Week

Regressive tax policies and abusive tax practices currently allow many wealthy elites and multinational corporations to get away with not paying their fair share of tax, denying government budgets the key source of funding for public services and social protections – the means to redistribute power and wealth critical to realizing human rights.

Every dollar lost to race to the bottom corporate tax cuts and tax havens is a dollar that could have been invested in public services – to build hospitals, schools, affordable housing and public transportation systems, or to deliver clean water and sanitation.

Our common advocacy messages to governments include:

(1) Use tax revenues to fund the public services and social protections that are the means to ending poverty and inequality.

(2) Make multinational corporations and the wealthy pay their share of taxes.

Key steps that governments can take to accomplish these aims:

(1) Build inclusivity into international tax cooperation by establishing an intergovernmental UN Global Tax Body and begin drafting a UN convention to combat abusive tax practices. Today, global tax standards are set by bodies such as the G20 and the OECD , also known as the ‘Rich Countries’ Club’. Meanwhile, more than 100 developing countries are excluded from the decision making table. See this briefing on why we need an intergovernmental UN Tax Body.

(2) Require public country-by-country reporting for all multinational corporations. If all large multinational corporations were obliged to carry out public country-by-country reporting, the public would be allowed to see where each corporation is doing business and how much taxes it pays in each country where it operates. This would make it more difficult for multinational corporations to avoid taxation. See this briefing on why public country-by-country reporting is a must.

(3) Establish public registers of the real “beneficial” owners of trusts and companies. This would allow the public to see who truly owns the trusts and companies operating in our societies, and make it more difficult for tax evaders and other criminals to hide their fortunes in anonymous trusts and shell companies, such as those revealed in the Panama Papers.

(4) Implement progressive tax policies and use tax revenues to fund public services and social protections as the vital means to ending poverty and inequality.

(5) Curb tax competition to prevent a race to the bottom.

(6) Increase resources and south-south capacity building for tax collection agencies to ensure governments are able to make multinationals pay their share of taxes.

(7) Protect whistleblowers through an ILO convention. Global exposures such as the Panama Papers and the Luxembourg Leaks were made possible by whistleblowers who took action in the public interest to promote justice and reveal large-scale tax dodging. Whistleblowers are rarely protected from prosecution and risk facing severe penalties despite the fact that they act in the interest of the public.

The Global Alliance for Tax Justice (GATJ) and our regional networks together with committed partners including Public Services International, its regional members and the PSI World Women’s Committee, ITUC-Africa, ActionAid, Oxfam and the Global Campaign for Education.

Bron: GATJ

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