""digital corporations and commodity traders shift their profits to tax havens and corrupt elites stash money in anonymous offshore accounts." "The direct damage is even greater because this system promotes corruption and crime and weakens states that are supposed to ensure development," Trautvetter said, adding that the "rich and powerful in both Africa and the global North ultimately benefit from this system." "There is enormous resistance to ensuring greater transparency and better cooperation and to fundamentally reforming it," the tax expert said."
"While he believes too little is being done to curb these losses, there has also been progress: most notably, more than 100 countries agreed in 2017 to automatically exchange information about bank account owners. "This means that banks in many tax havens now automatically report information about account owners to the tax authorities in their home countries," said Trautvetter. More transparency in data controls Many African countries are still implementing the agreement, so data for evaluation is still missing."
An estimated US$88 billion leaves Africa annually through tax evasion, money laundering and corruption, up from about US$50 billion in 2015. Analysts report that these outflows deprive governments of revenue needed for healthcare, education and infrastructure. Digital corporations and commodity traders shift profits to tax havens, while corrupt elites stash funds in anonymous offshore accounts. The system promotes corruption, crime and weakens state capacity. Over 100 countries agreed in 2017 to automatically exchange bank-account information, and many tax havens now report account-owner data to home-country tax authorities. Implementation in African countries remains incomplete but is expected to improve transparency.
Read at www.dw.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]