Tax Justice Activities during the WSF in Tunis

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Latest revision as of 17:48, 23 March 2013

Mobilising for Tax Justice in the extractive sector

27 March

Slot : 1

Salle : M211

Organisation:

Tax Justice Network-Africa

Description

continue to lock-in government’s in an over dependence of resource rents from the export of raw, unfinished or minimally beneficiated goods. African governments continue to favour trade and investment agreements to attract direct foreign investment. This over dependence on resource rents has resulted in a failure to capture large portions of tax revenue due to hidden subsidies such as low or zero tax and royalty rates, falsified profits and tax exemptions. While one of the streams of the African Mining Vision (AMV) is to regulate transfer pricing, the African continent is loosing billions of dollars as transnational corporations transfer their profits to secrecy jurisdictions. Furthermore under guise of corporate social responsibility, corporations receive immense tax breaks for often for unfulfilled community “upliftment” projects and therefore further abdicate their obligation to pay their fair share of tax and also robs the state from fulfilling their social service responsibilities through receiving sufficient tax revenue. This seminar will expose cases of corporations tax avoidance in region and explore strategies and the mobilisation required to combat transfer pricing, the use of secrecy jurisdictions, corporate social responsibility and investment agreements that facilitate tax avoidance and leakage in the mining sector.

Tax Justice film Festival

Jour : 27 March

Slot : 1

Salle : M206

Organised by:

Tax Justice Network-Africa

Description

Tax avoidance and tax evasion by MNC has in the recent times occupied media and policy discourse. From Google's usage of Tax havens of Bermuda to Glencore tax dodging in Zambia. The meeting will provide a space to screen the most recent films and clips that have been developed to expose the challenges related to how rich elites and MNCs are using Tax havens to shift profits offshore.

Alternatives to Austerity: Closing loopholes Tax Revenue Leakage

Jour : 28

Slot : 1

Salle : SE1

Organisation:

Tax Justice Network-Africa

Description:

Early December Starbucks was all over the international media. Citizen movements in the UK found it unfair that their local coffee shop had to pay taxes, while multinational Starbucks gets away without any tax contributions. Following public campaigning, Starbucks agreed to pay “a significant amount of tax” over the next two years. The story is a telling example of how rich corporations with the help of good lawyers, accountants and complex company structures make sure to shift their profits to countries in which taxes are low or absent. Google and Amazon are other companies whose tax dodging practices frequently make it to the headlines. What is less covered by international media and public debate are is the massive flow of illicit money finding its way from developing countries to the global North every year. It is estimated that around 1 trillion USD flows illicitly from developing countries to the North every year. Citizens in the North are also affected: Governments in the EU annually lose the equivalent of an aggregated EU health budget to illicit financial flows. This happens at the same time as governments on all continents are tightening their belts, cutting essential social services often to live up to austerity demands from external lenders. Once again, the response to an international financial crisis has been lending. Billions of dollars have been thrown into new loans, and The IMF and World Bank are responsible for 45 per cent of new loans to low-income countries over the last five years, often with harmful conditions attached. And the lending is expected to increase. Critical questions: - How can we make sure that balancing budgets are not about cutting costs, but about increasing revenues? - How can progressive tax systems be an alternative to debt, austerity and policy conditions from lenders? - How can we plug the leaks of illicit outflows that rob citizens across the world of resources that belongs to the public?

Race to the Bottom: Tackling harmful Tax competition

28 March

Slot : 3

Salle : M209

Organisation:

Tax Justice Network-Africa

Description

As governments wrestle with the unpredictability and insufficiency of external aid, advocates have called for improvements in domestic resource mobilization. Not only would greater domestic resource mobilization create more secure access to resources, but it would increase countries’ autonomy and the public’s sense of ownership of state policies and projects. Taxation has traditionally been and still is the most reliable and sustainable source of government revenue. Taxation policies that promote re-distributive income and growth among all segments of the country’s population lie at the heart of the state’s capacity to maintain just social and economic relations. In recent years, taxation regimes in developing countries have begun to attract serious attention in the development arena. While developed countries have had effectively designed tax systems that guarantee resource mobilization and utilization to accelerate socio-economic growth and welfare creation, many developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, lag behind. Governments particular in developing countries are offering a wide range of tax incentives to businesses to attract greater levels of foreign direct investment (FDI) into their countries. Such incentives include corporate income tax holidays, notably in export processing zones (EPZs), and reductions from the standard rate for taxes such as import duties and VAT. Yet this study shows that such tax incentives are leading to very large revenue losses for governments, are promoting harmful tax competition in the region, and are not needed to attract FDI. The seminar will explore ways of tackling this harmful race to the bottom which is significantly eroding taxes bases of poor countries.

Tackling Illicit Financial flows from Developing Countries

29 March

Slot : 1

Venue : M211

http://www.fsm2013.org/node/2401

Organised by:

Tax Justice Network-Africa

Description

Illicit financial flows are a type of capital flight, and have been a persistent plague on the developing world for some time now. Illicit financial flows are facilitated by global financial opacity and perpetuate poverty. This shadow financial system includes tax havens, secrecy jurisdictions, anonymous corporations, fraudulent foundations, trade mispricing mechanisms, money laundering techniques, and loopholes in laws that facilitate the movement of corrupt, criminal, and commercially tax-evading money across borders. Recent events around the world demonstrate the interconnectedness of the international financial system and the need for a global approach in addressing systemic issues. The financial architecture that allows money to move around the world is the same one used by corrupt dictators and criminals to hide funds and evade law enforcement. The series of seminars will give an overview of the global mechanisms used to facilitate illicit financial flows and provide illustration, data and figures of IFFS from various countries and continents which will be covered by the first seminar. The second seminar will focus on the highlighted problem in the context of domestic resource mobilization and recent austerity measures. The aim of the two is hence to provide specific recommendations all centered on increasing financial transparency and accountability to address these issues.

Open Forum on the Tax Justice Agenda

29 March 2013, 13:00-15:30hrs

Université de Tunis El Manar, Faculté de droits, salle de lecture n° 1

Organized by:

• Global Policy Forum
• Tax Justice Network-Africa
• Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung
• War on Want
• CNCD-11.11.11
• CIDSE.

Eco-Social Fiscal Justice as Part of a Holistic Post 2015 Agenda

28 March 2013, 16.00 – 18.30hrs

Université de Tunis El Manar, Faculté de droits, salle de lecture n° 1

Organized by:

• Global Policy Forum in cooperation with FES, GIZ and the Global Movement for Budget Transparency, Accountability and Participation

The world needs a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT)

Organisation:

Robin Hood Tax campaign

Description

The campaign for a Financial Transactions/Robin Hood Tax has been boosted by the decision by 11 or more EU countries to introduce a tax at supra-national level. This meeting would set out the case for other countries inside and outside the EU to join the process, the need for a broadly-based tax, and the need to spend the proceeds on defending jobs and public services, combating poverty and tackling climate change.