Martin Meenagh blog

Global Tax Dodging

I can't stand taxes. I think anyone in their right mind doesn't. Yet some evils are necessary in this life. Taxes may be legalised theft, but sometimes it is theft of a form that benefits us all. Mass tax avoidance can sometimes distort economies enormously. One of the most under-reported aspects of the present crisis is how much our troubles are a consequence of multinational companies creatively cooking their books so as to dump liabilities overseas and claim credits at home.

At least that sort of avoidance is legal, and a matter of the stupidity of cupidity of legislators. I think, like Angela Merkel a few years ago, we should set the secret services on very large tax-dodgers, rather than coddling them.

However, global tax evasion is illegal, and hits at the developing world particularly.

Here's an article from the Irish Times that illuminates a scandal worth more in terms of money flows than any combination of development aid. I liked it, anyway.

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