Pandora Papers: Oxfam India Responds

Pandora Papers: Oxfam India Responds

Tax havens cost governments around the world $427 billion each year. Ordinary taxpayers have to pick up the pieces. Developing countries are being hardest hit, proportionately.

4 Oct, 2021| Responding to the Pandora papers which exposed the wealthy individuals and multinational corporations using tax havens to avoid paying their fair share of tax, Amitabh Behar, CEO of Oxfam India, said:

“This is another shocking exposé of the oceans of money sloshing around the darkness of the world’s tax havens that must prompt immediate action, as has long been promised.  Whenever a politician or business leader claims there is ‘no money’ to pay for health, education, climate damage, innovation and for a fair post-COVID recovery, they know where to look".

“Tax havens cost governments around the world $427 billion each year. That is the equivalent of a nurse’s yearly salary every second of every hour, every day. Ordinary taxpayers have to pick up the pieces. Developing countries are being hardest hit, proportionately. Corporations and the wealthiest individuals that use tax havens are outcompeting those who don’t. Tax havens also help crime and corruption to flourish".

“We cannot allow tax havens to continue to stretch global inequality to breaking point while the world experiences the largest increase in extreme poverty in decades. Abolishing tax havens can go a long way towards ensuring that government actually have the access to tax revenue they need to fund quality public expenditure, however at the same time governments must continue to spend more on social welfare and public services as a larger proportion of existing budget allocations to at least provide the bare minimum of services of health and education for all.”

Oxfam calls on governments to end tax havens by:

1: Ending tax secrecy on individuals, offshores and multinational corporations. Set up a public register on the real owners of bank accounts, trusts, shell companies and assets. Require multinational corporations to publicly report their accounts where they do business, country-by-country. 

2: Increasing the use of automatic exchange, allowing revenue authorities access to information they need to track the money.

3: Agreeing a global blacklist of tax havens and taking counter measures, including sanctions, to limit their use. 

4: Setting a new global agenda on taxing wealth and capital fairly; addressing tax competition between countries on high-net-worth-individuals, either on income or wealth, against agreed standards.

About Oxfam India

Oxfam India is a movement of people working to end discrimination and create a free and just society. We work to ensure that Adivasis, Dalits, Muslims, and women and girls have safe violence-free lives with freedom to speak their mind, equal opportunities to realize their rights, and a discrimination-free future.

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