Download or read book Tax Havens and International Human Rights written by Paul Beckett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book sails in uncharted waters. It takes a human rights-based approach to tax havens, and is a detailed analysis of structures and the laws that generate and support these. It makes plain the unscrupulous or merely indifferent ways in which, using tax havens, businesses and individuals systematically undermine and for all practical purposes eliminate access to remedies under international human rights law. It exposes as abusive of human rights a complex structural web of trusts, companies, partnerships, foundations, nominees and fiduciaries; secrecy, immunity and smoke screens. It also lays bare the cynical manipulation by tax havens of traditional legal forms and conventions, and the creation of entities so bizarre and chimeric that they defy classification. Yet from the perspective of the tax havens themselves, these are entirely legitimate; the product of duly enacted domestic laws. This book is not a work of investigative journalism in the style of the Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of The Panama Papers, exposing political or financial corruption, money laundering or the financing of terrorism. All those elements are present of course, but the focus is on international human rights and how tax havens do not merely facilitate but actively connive at their breach. The tax havens are compromising the international human rights legal continuum.
Download or read book Tax Inequality and Human Rights written by Philip Alston and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-11 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Tax, Inequality, and Human Rights, experts in human rights law and in tax law debate the linkages between the two fields and highlight how each can help to tackle rapidly growing inequality in the economic, social, and political realms. Against a backdrop of systemic corporate tax avoidance, widespread use of tax havens, persistent pressures to embrace austerity policies, and growing gaps between the rich and poor, this book encourages readers to understand fiscal policy as human rights policy, and thus as having profound consequences for the well-being of citizens around the world. Prominent scholars and practitioners examine how the foundational principles of tax law and human rights law intersect and diverge; discuss the cross-border nature and human rights impacts of abusive practices like tax avoidance and evasion; question the reluctance of states to bring transparency and accountability to tax policies and practices; highlight the responsibility of private sector actors for shaping and misshaping tax laws; and critically evaluate domestic tax rules through the lens of equality and nondiscrimination. The contributing authors also explore how international human rights obligations should influence the framework for both domestic and international tax reforms. They address what human rights law requires of state tax policies and how tax laws and loopholes affect the enjoyment of human rights by people outside a state's borders. Because tax and human rights both turn on the relationship between the individual and the state, neo-liberalism's erosion of the social contract threatens to undermine them both.
Download or read book Human Rights and Taxation in Europe and the World written by Georg Kofler and published by IBFD. This book was released on 2011 with total page 581 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Resumen del editor: "The increasing globalization and the restructuring of the European legal framework by the Treaty of Lisbon are important factors to suggest that the traditional separation of spheres between taxation and human rights should be revisited. This book examines the issues surrounding the impact of the Lisbon Treaty on the guarantee and enforcement of human rights in the area of EU (tax) law and explores the possible development and potential impact of human rights in the field of taxation in this age of global law."
Download or read book Combating Fiscal Fraud and Empowering Regulators written by Brigitte Unger and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Combating Fiscal Fraud and Empowering Regulators analyzes the impact of new international tax regulations on the scope and scale of tax evasion, tax avoidance, and money laundering. These are analyzed through an ecosystem framework in which, similar to a natural ecosystem, new tax regulations appear as heavy shocks to the tax ecosystem, to which the 'species' such as countries, corporations, and tax experts will react by looking for new loopholes and niches of survival. By analyzing the impact of tax reforms from different perspectives--a legal, political science, accounting, and economic one--one may derive an assessment of the reforms and policy recommendations for an improved international tax system. The ultimate goal is to combat fiscal fraud and empower regulators, in that line, this volume is intended for a broad audience that seeks to know more about the latest state of the art in the realm of taxation from a multidisciplinary perspective. The money involved amounts to billions in unpaid taxes that could be better used for stopping hunger, guaranteeing education, and safeguarding biodiversity, hence making this world a better one. Regulators can see this book as a guiding light of what has happened in the past forty years, and how the world has and will continue to change as a result of it. Combating Fiscal Fraud and Empowering Regulators is also a warning about new emerging tax loopholes, such as freeports or golden passports and visas, where residency can be bought in tax havens, even within the European Union. The main message is that inequality can and has to be reduced substantially and that this can be achieved through a well-working international tax system that eliminates secrecy, opaqueness, and tax havens.
Download or read book COVID 19 and Human Rights written by Morten Kjaerum and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely collection brings together original explorations of the COVID-19 pandemic and its wide-ranging, global effects on human rights. The contributors argue that a human rights perspective is necessary to understand the pervasive consequences of the crisis, while focusing attention on those being left behind and providing a necessary framework for the effort to 'build back better'. Expert contributors to this volume address interconnections between the COVID-19 crisis and human rights to equality and non-discrimination, including historical responses to pandemics, populism and authoritarianism, and the rights to health, information, water and the environment. Highlighting the dangerous potential for derogations from human rights, authors further scrutinize the human rights compliance of new legislation and policies in relation to issues such as privacy, protection of persons with disabilities, freedom of expression, and access to medicines. Acknowledging the pandemic as a defining moment for human rights, the volume proposes a post-crisis human rights agenda to engage civil society and government at all levels in concrete measures to roll back increasing inequality. With rich examples, new thinking, and provocative analyses of human rights, COVID-19, pandemics, crises, and inequality, this book will be of key interest to scholars, students, and practitioners in all areas of human rights, global governance, and public health, as well as others who are ready to embark on an exploration of these complex challenges. The Open Access version of this book, available at http: //www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.
Download or read book Global Tax Fairness written by Thomas Pogge and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-04 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses sixteen different reform proposals that are urgently needed to correct the fault lines in the international tax system as it exists today, and which deprive both developing and developed countries of critical tax resources. It offers clear and concrete ideas on how the reforms can be achieved and why they are important for a more just and equitable global system to prevail. The key to reducing the tax gap and consequent human rights deficit in poor countries is global financial transparency. Such transparency is essential to curbing illicit financial flows that drain less developed countries of capital and tax revenues, and are an impediment to sustainable development. A major break-through for financial transparency is now within reach. The policy reforms outlined in this book not only advance tax justice but also protect human rights by curtailing illegal activity and making available more resources for development. While the reforms are realistic they require both political and an informed and engaged civil society that can put pressure on governments and policy makers to act.
Download or read book Globalization and Human Rights written by Jesús Ballesteros and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-04-14 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Globalisation turns out to be untenable because it does not guarantee minimum social equity, peace and respect for the environment, and therefore does not guarantee the effective accomplishment of human rights. This book analyzes this issue and raises proposals for a new perspective. The first part describes the soft threats to human rights, derived from the devaluation of the politics and the productive economy with regard to the finance. It entails the concealment of the reality in the shape of exploitation as the tax havens and in the shape of marginalization of the persons with different abilities. The second part include a study of hard threats to human rights and examines two cases of failed states: Afghanistan and Somalia, in which the violence has supplanted the politics and the economy. In view of these situations it is necessary to rethink the force of classic ius gentium and the humanitarian right. The third part presents the European Union as a legal and political space in which conditions of a worthy life are better defended by means of the Primacy of Practical Reason and Social State of Law, and by the requirement of peace as the main rule of international relations.
Download or read book Imposing Standards written by Martin Hearson and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Imposing Standards, Martin Hearson shifts the focus of political rhetoric regarding international tax rules from tax havens and the Global North to the damaging impact of this regime on the Global South. Even when not exploited by tax dodgers, international tax standards place severe limits on the ability of developing countries to tax businesses, denying the Global South access to much-needed revenue. The international rules that allow tax avoidance by multinational corporations have dominated political debate about international tax in the United States and Europe, especially since the global financial crisis of 2007–2008. Hearson asks how developing countries willingly gave up their right to tax foreign companies, charting their assimilation into an OECD-led regime from the days of early independence to the present day. Based on interviews with treaty negotiators, policymakers and lobbyists, as well as observation at intergovernmental meetings, archival research, and fieldwork in Africa and Asia, Imposing Standards shows that capacity constraints and imperfect negotiation strategies in developing countries were exploited by capital-exporting states, shielding multinationals from taxation and depriving nations in the Global South of revenue they both need and deserve. Thanks to generous funding from the Gates Foundation, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
Download or read book International Economic Law in the 21st Century written by Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-07-24 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The state-centred 'Westphalian model' of international law has failed to protect human rights and other international public goods effectively. Most international trade, financial and environmental agreements do not even refer to human rights, consumer welfare, democratic citizen participation and transnational rule of law for the benefit of citizens. This book argues that these 'multilevel governance failures' are largely due to inadequate regulation of the 'collective action problems' in the supply of international public goods, such as inadequate legal, judicial and democratic accountability of governments vis-a-vis citizens. Rather than treating citizens as mere objects of intergovernmental economic and environmental regulation and leaving multilevel governance of international public goods to discretionary 'foreign policy', human rights and constitutional democracy call for 'civilizing' and 'constitutionalizing' international economic and environmental cooperation by stronger legal and judicial protection of citizens and their constitutional rights in international economic law. Moreover intergovernmental regulation of transnational cooperation among citizens must be justified by 'principles of justice' and 'multilevel constitutional restraints' protecting rights of citizens and their 'public reason'. The reality of 'constitutional pluralism' requires respecting legitimately diverse conceptions of human rights and democratic constitutionalism. The obvious failures in the governance of interrelated trading, financial and environmental systems must be restrained by cosmopolitan, constitutional conceptions of international law protecting the transnational rule of law and participatory democracy for the benefit of citizens.
Download or read book Business and Human Rights written by Nadia Bernaz and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Business corporations can and do violate human rights all over the world, and they are often not held to account. Emblematic cases and situations such as the state of the Niger Delta and the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory are examples of corporate human rights abuses which are not adequately prevented and remedied. Business and human rights as a field seeks to enhance the accountability of business – companies and businesspeople – in the human rights area, or, to phrase it differently, to bridge the accountability gap. Bridging the accountability gap is to be understood as both setting standards and holding corporations and businesspeople to account if violations occur. Adopting a legal perspective, this book presents the ways in which this dual undertaking has been and could be further carried out in the future, and evaluates the extent to which the various initiatives in the field bridge the corporate accountability gap. It looks at the historical background of the field of business and human rights, and examines salient periods, events and cases. The book then goes on to explore the relevance of international human rights law and international criminal law for global business. International soft law and policy initiatives which have blossomed in recent years are evaluated along with private modes of regulation. The book also examines how domestic law, especially the domestic law of multinational companies’ home countries, can be used to prevent and redress corporate related human rights violations.
Download or read book An Anatomy of Tax Havens written by Paul R. Beckett and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-10-23 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tax havens in offshore lands like Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas were once considered a rarity, the preserve of the super-rich. Today, they are big business available to the masses. Their goal? To avoid any form of accountability. Own nothing. Possess everything. Be answerable to no one. Where are these tax havens? What forms can they take? What future lies in store for them, and why should we care? An Anatomy of Tax Havens: Europe, the Caribbean and the United States of America answers these questions, and more, in the first comparative study in one volume of European, Caribbean and United States tax havens. It examines their simple origin to the extreme forms some take today, delving into the murky subculture that has deliberately made them impenetrably obscure. Uniquely, it combines detailed technical expertise (regulatory regimes, financial crime, legal and equitable structuring) with an analysis of their impact on domestic and global political, economic, environmental and social concerns. An Anatomy of Tax Havens is a fascinating, informative read for a broad readership; from legal, accountancy and tax practitioners to compliance regulators, law enforcement agencies, and students and researchers interested in business studies, taxation, and crime.
Download or read book Capital Flight from Africa written by Simeon Ibidayo Ajayi and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive thematic analysis of capital flight from Africa, it covers the role of safe havens, offshore financial centres, and banking secrecy in facilitating illicit financial flows and provides rich insights to policy makers interested in designing strategies to address the problems of capital flight and illicit financial flows.
Download or read book The Cosmopolites written by Atossa Araxia Abrahamian and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cosmopolites are literally "citizens of the world," from the Greek word kosmos, meaning "world," and polites, or "citizen." Garry Davis, aka World Citizen No. 1, and creator of the World Passport, was a former Broadway actor and World War II bomber pilot who renounced his American citizenship in 1948 as a form of protest against nationalism, sovereign borders, and war. Today there are cosmopolites of all stripes, rich or poor, intentional or unwitting, from 1-percenters who own five passports thanks to tax-havens to theBidoon, the stateless people of countries like the United Arab Emirates. Journalist Atossa Abrahamian, herself a cosmopolite, travels around the globe to meet the people who have come to embody an increasingly fluid, borderless world. Along the way you are introduced to a colorful cast of characters, including passport-burning atheist hackers, the new Knights of Malta, California libertarian "seasteaders," who are residents of floating city-states,Bidoons, who have been forced to be citizens of the island nation Comoros, entrepreneurs in the business of buying and selling passports, cosmopolites who live on a luxury cruise ship calledThe World, and shady businessmen with ties to Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad.
Download or read book The Uncounted written by Alex Cobham and published by Polity. This book was released on 2020-02-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What we count matters - and in a world where policies and decisions are underpinned by numbers, statistics and data, if you’re not counted, you don’t count. Alex Cobham argues that systematic gaps in economic and demographic data not only lead us to understate a wide range of damaging inequalities, but also to actively exacerbate them. He shows how, in statistics ranging from electoral registers to household surveys and census data, people from disadvantaged groups, such as indigenous populations, women, and disabled people, are consistently underrepresented. This further marginalizes them, reducing everything from their political power to their weight in public spending decisions. Meanwhile, corporations and the ultra-rich seek ever greater complexity and opacity in their financial affairs - and when their wealth goes untallied, it means they can avoid regulation and taxation. This brilliantly researched book shows how what we do and don’t count is not a neutral or ‘technical’ question: the numbers that rule our world are skewed by raw politics. Cobham forensically lays bare how these issues strike at the heart of our democracy, entrenching inequality and injustice – and outlines what we can do about it.
Download or read book Human Rights in Latin America written by Sonia Cardenas and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-06-29 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the last half century, Latin America has been plagued by civil wars, dictatorships, torture, legacies of colonialism and racism, and other evils. The region has also experienced dramatic—if uneven—human rights improvements. The accounts of how Latin America's people have dealt with the persistent threats to their fundamental rights offer lessons for people around the world. Human Rights in Latin America: A Politics of Terror and Hope is the first textbook to provide a comprehensive introduction to the human rights issues facing an area that constitutes more than half of the Western Hemisphere. Leading human rights researcher and educator Sonia Cardenas brings together regional examples of both terror and hope, emphasizing the dualities inherent in human rights struggles. Organized by three pivotal topics—human rights violations, reform, and accountability—this book offers an authoritative synthesis of research on human rights on the continent. From historical accounts of abuse to successful transnational campaigns and legal battles, Human Rights in Latin America explores the tensions underlying a vast range of human rights initiatives. In addition to surveying the roles of the United States, relatives of the disappeared, and truth commissions, Cardenas covers newer ground in addressing the colonial and ideological underpinnings of human rights abuses, emerging campaigns for disability and sexuality rights, and regional dynamics relating to the International Criminal Court. Engagingly written and fully illustrated, Human Rights in Latin America creates an important niche among human rights and Latin American textbooks. Ample supplementary resources—including discussion questions, interdisciplinary reading lists, filmographies, online resources, internship opportunities, and instructor assignments—make this an especially valuable text for use in human rights courses.
Download or read book Tax Havens written by Ronen Palan and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Cayman Islands and the Isle of Man to the Principality of Liechtenstein and the state of Delaware, tax havens offer lower tax rates, less stringent regulations and enforcement, and promises of strict secrecy to individuals and corporations alike. In recent years government regulators, hoping to remedy economic crisis by diverting capital from hidden channels back into taxable view, have undertaken sustained and serious efforts to force tax havens into compliance. In Tax Havens, Ronen Palan, Richard Murphy, and Christian Chavagneux provide an up-to-date evaluation of the role and function of tax havens in the global financial system-their history, inner workings, impact, extent, and enforcement. They make clear that while, individually, tax havens may appear insignificant, together they have a major impact on the global economy. Holding up to $13 trillion of personal wealth-the equivalent of the annual U.S. Gross National Product-and serving as the legal home of two million corporate entities and half of all international lending banks, tax havens also skew the distribution of globalization's costs and benefits to the detriment of developing economies. The first comprehensive account of these entities, this book challenges much of the conventional wisdom about tax havens. The authors reveal that, rather than operating at the margins of the world economy, tax havens are integral to it. More than simple conduits for tax avoidance and evasion, tax havens actually belong to the broad world of finance, to the business of managing the monetary resources of individuals, organizations, and countries. They have become among the most powerful instruments of globalization, one of the principal causes of global financial instability, and one of the large political issues of our times.
Download or read book Tax Us If You Can written by Tax Justice Network-Africa and published by Fahamu/Pambazuka. This book was released on 2011-10-20 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This short introduction to issues of tax justice explains the meaning and causes of tax injustice and offers options for a better future. Providing insight into the specific failures of Africa s tax systemand the associated problems of capital flight, tax evasion, tax avoidance, and tax competitionthis book explores the role of governments, parliaments, and taxpayers, and asks how stakeholders can help achieve tax justice. Arguing that tax revenues are essential for establishing independent states of free citizens, it demonstrates how the tax consensus promoted by multilateral agencies, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, has influenced tax policy in Africa and led to a reduction in government revenues in many countries. "
