In this month’s Taxcast, our monthly podcast: we look at tax justice and public procurement — the efforts to hit tax dodging companies where it really hurts on a local level — trying to stop them bidding for public money for public contracts. Also:
- how massive amounts of money are flowing into Tax Haven USA to circumvent the flawed Common Reporting Standard — South Dakota is apparently raking in tax evading capital
- the slippery world of ‘residence planning’ and the ‘synthetic residency’ dodge
- we discuss the UK’s Criminal Finances Bill likely to be passed this year, which includes proposals for ‘Unexplained Wealth Orders’ and holding tax evading enablers to account. An amendment to the bill could force UK satellite tax havens, the overseas territories to create public registers of the real owners of companies, something they’ve so far refused to do.
- and we consider the British threat to the EU: ‘if you give us a bad Brexit deal, we’ll push regulation-lite, tax haven UK even further in a race to the bottom and shoot ourselves in the foot.’
Featuring: John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network, Paul Monaghan, co-founding Director of the Fair Tax Mark and Miguel Alba, Policy researcher in private sector and tax policies in Oxfam Intermón, Spain Zonas Libres de Paraisos Fiscales initiative. Produced and presented by Naomi Fowler for the Tax Justice Network.
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As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
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