Sorry Nick, no, this isn\’t true.
That treasure trove is the $3.1tn of tax, equivalent to 5.1% of global GDP, which according to international campaign group Tax Justice Network is illegally evaded in 145 countries, covering 98.2% of the world\’s population.
That\’s Ritchie\’s report that is.
The majority of these flows are washed through tax havens. These secrecy jurisdictions act as cover from international tax authorities. Disturbingly, the obstacles placed by the global financial system that would allow individual countries to track down and repatriate this cash are prohibitively burdensome. This is why a new age of financial transparency and accountability is required. Five key reforms would lay the foundations for this:
And no, Ritchie\’s report shows no such thing.
Let us, for a moment, assume Ritchie\’s report is correct (and for once I\’ve no problem with his basic methodology although I do of course with the conclusions he draws).
What he\’s shown is that there\’s a largish grey economy in many countries. And this grey economy ain\’t people fooling around in tax havens. It\’s the builder doing a job for cash, VAT off. Dozen eggs at the farm, no receipt.
This grey economy that Ritchie has measured just isn\’t all about offshore at all. Tax avoidance might be, the black economy of illegal activities, the drugs etc, might well be, but this grey economy that is being measured here is pretty much a domestic phenomenon in each and every country.
So, however much you want to collect this tax, however much you want to get the tax avoidace industry, I\’m sorry, but you\’re spouting bollocks when you use this report to call for closing down offshore.
They\’re just not related.
And this doorstep-eggs part of the economy is exactly the part the govt should explicitly step away from. Stifling small scale economic activity is criminal.
Just imagine what it’s like on planet Zog. The riches, the tidal wave of money lapping up on their shores.
Zog, of course, is the place where all the money not processed by the state ends up.
Not in your and my pockets, no, for if the state don’t spend it, it’s gone, just gone…
As the Greeks and Italians are cracking down on their black/grey economies, we should soon find out what kind of effect doing so has.
Sorry guys, but I’m calling bullshit on all of this.
What Ritchie Really Wants (what he really, really wants) is for those of you trapped in high tax, low growth economies to have no escape. Not for you, not for your children, not forever.
What Ritchie Really Wants (what he really, really wants) is for you to be nothing more than a tax slave to the state, with things like income tax, national insurance and especially council tax taking up an ever increasing part of your income, so you will have nothing but pocket money.
Repeat after me:….
The state is your mother, the state is your father, all is within the state, nothing is without the state, you and the state are one.
Resistance is futile.