Economics
Tax Justice Network: That War on Drugs
“The toughest laws created the toughest criminals. The only thing we’re doing is increasing the violence. And at this point, where we are now, only the most violent will survive. We have to ask about political will here. What are the interests of the countries and other major players involved?” — Karina Garcia-Reyes
The US government has spent an estimated $1 trillion on their ‘war on drugs.’ But, over 50 years later, the cross-border flows of illegal drugs, arms and money have increased. In the second part of a two part series (part 1 available here) we look at the failed ‘war on drugs,’ the movement to decriminalise, regulate and tax, opportunities and challenges for lower income nations, and the role of tax justice.
Featuring:
- Associate Professor of International and Organised Crime at Bristol Law School, Dr Mary Young
- Zara Snapp, co-founder of Instituto RIA
- Sergio Chaparro Hernandez of the Tax Justice Network
- Martin Drewry of Health Poverty Action
- Max Gallien of the International Centre for Tax and Development and the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex
- Eric Gutierrez, of the International Centre of Human Rights and Drug Policy
- Taxcast host Naomi Fowler, co-produced with Jo Barratt of the Tax Justice Network
Resources:
- Invest in Justice, Jamaica Case Study
- Cannabis taxation – A new revenue source for development? Max Gallien and Giovanni Occhiali
- Diverse models of legalisation, Max Gallien and Giovanni Occhiali
- Tax Justice and the Legal Regulation of Drugs (video)
- A quiet revolution across the globe: drug decriminalisation across the globe
- Inside Mexico’s war on drugs: Conversations with ‘el narco’
- Poverty, gender and violence in the narratives of former narcos: accounting for drug trafficking violence in Mexico Karina Garcia-Reyes https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/193726176/Final_Copy_2018_11_06_Garcia_K_G_PhD_Redacted.pdf
- Debunking the Narco Myth, Karina Garcia-Reyes
- A world fit for money laundering: The Atlantic alliance’s undermining of organised crime control: Young, Mary Alice; Woodiwiss, Michael
- Organised crime and security threats in Caribbean Small Island Developing States: A Critical analysis of US assumptions and policies: Young, Mary; Woodiwiss, Michael
“It was always about the US and the UK in particular, protecting and leveraging their own national trading interests on both sides of the Atlantic. Western countries were never going to put the trillions used on the war on drugs into combating financial secrecy havens.” ~ Dr Mary Young
“The tools of tax avoidance are the same tools that enable the illicit drug trade’s extraordinary resilience to prohibition.” ~ Eric Gutierrez
Further Reading:
- Inside Mexico’s war on drugs: Conversations with ‘el narco’
- Poverty, gender and violence in the narratives of former narcos: accounting for drug trafficking violence in Mexico (Karina Garcia-Reyes)
- Debunking the Narco Myth
- A world fit for money laundering: The Atlantic alliance’s undermining of organised crime control: Young, Mary Alice; Woodiwiss, Michael
- Organised crime and security threats in Caribbean Small Island Developing States: A Critical analysis of US assumptions and policies: Young, Mary; Woodiwiss, Michael
Richard Allen comes across a massive tax fraud that makes the Channel Islands loophole look like a tea party. He teams up with two more retailers whose businesses are being destroyed by it and they start to apply pressure to the tax authorities, HMRC, who seem reluctant to take on big online market players Amazon and eBay.
Music (in order of use) is courtesy of Cherry Red Records: Steal No Egg by Electric Orange and Movement by Praise Space Electric.
This is a Tax Justice Network podcast with Naomi Fowler of the Taxcast podcast. Produced by Naomi Fowler and Leo Schick and sound designed by Leo Schick.
Tax evasion is an illegal – usually criminal – activity, by which a taxpayer escapes tax through deception. Tax avoidance, on the other hand, means getting around (or avoiding) the spirit of the law without actually breaking the law. There is a large grey area between the two poles of avoidance and evasion.
Tax evasion is an illegal – usually criminal – activity, by which a taxpayer escapes tax through deception. Tax avoidance, on the other hand, means getting around (or avoiding) the spirit of the law without actually breaking the law. There is a large grey area between the two poles of avoidance and evasion.
A tax haven or secrecy jurisdiction is a place that deliberately provides an escape route for people or entities who live or operate elsewhere. They shield them from whatever taxes, criminal laws, financial regulations, transparency or other constraints they don’t like. Ordinary people whose lives are affected by tax haven laws are not consulted on these laws because they live in other countries: they have no say in how those laws are made, thus undermining their democratic rights.
“Tax is one of the smartest investments you can make.” That’s Professor Chris Harrop’s promise to companies, and his new tax funded impact model proves it by helping quantify how paying tax is not only good for their businesses, but for the economies they’re operating in, and of course for people and society.
Plus: Why have OECD countries just bent the knee to Donald Trump and given up their sovereign rights to tax US businesses operating within their own borders? Naomi Fowler speaks with Zorka Millin of the FACT Coalition about how US companies now have an exemption from the global minimum corporate tax. Also, Zorka discusses some progress on the Corporate Transparency Act’s rollercoaster journey in the US towards setting up a beneficial ownership register – a court ruling has pushed things a little further forward, which is good news since the United States is the world’s biggest financial secrecy offender. Now some of the watering down of the act needs to be reversed…
And finally, the UK has strengthened its whistleblower reward scheme, lawyer Mary Inman of Whistleblower Partners tells us more.
Produced by Tax Justice Network
