UK putting an end to stamp duty on shares?
- Details
- Written by David Hillman
- Category: Analysis
Today (20.3.13) in the UK, we had a statement from the Finance Minister, George Osborne (or in UK-parlance, a Budget statement was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer) where he said:
"I also want Britain to be the place where people raise money and invest.
Financial services are about much more than banking.
The Rise of the South - Human Development Report 2013
- Details
- Written by UNDP
- Category: Documents
The new UNDP Human Development Report on the Rise of the South!
Read ...The Rise of the South
Poverty or Inequality?
- Details
- Written by Roberto Bissio
- Category: Analysis
For over a decade the debate, research and practice focused on extreme poverty. However, the key to the new development agenda could be somewhere else, much less illuminated by the political debate: inequality. This is what emerges from several months of consultations with academics and civil society organizations performed by the specialized agencies of the United Nations on women and children, UN Women and UNICEF.
Empowering women is a shortcut to tackling hunger
- Details
- Written by Olivier De Schutter / UN
- Category: Documents
8 March - Women's day
Read this most important report
Income Inequality: 1 inch to 5 miles
- Details
- Written by David Cay Johnston
- Category: Analysis
An amazing article on income inequality ... !
Taxing away inequality
- Details
- Written by Emmlanuel Saez
- Category: Analysis
Interview with Emmanuel Saez, famous for working with Thomas Piketty on top incomes:
Tax Us If You Can!
- Details
- Written by Tax Justice Network
- Category: Analysis
A Second edition of a booklet as relevant as ever!
Yes, Taxation can be a good thing for developing countries
- Details
- Written by EJ Fagan / GFI
- Category: Analysis
Alvin Mosiama, director of Tax Justice Network Africa, and a Task Force regional representative, has as much experience as anyone in campaigning on taxes and transparency for developing countries. In a great op-ed for Devex that everyone should read, he outlines how corporations aren’t just shifting profits to tax havens, but simultaneously shifting the burden of funding the government to those that can least afford it.
Mosiama writes,
Read more: Yes, Taxation can be a good thing for developing countries
An emerging new social paradigm for Europe
- Details
- Category: Research
An emerging new social paradigm for Europe
Francine Mestrum[1]
Western European countries still have the best developed and the most efficient welfare states in the world. They are looked at with envy by many people from less developed countries. Yet, these welfare states are threatened, and instead of serving as a model for other countries, it may well be that the population of the EU will soon learn what it means to live with less security. The reason is very simple. The huge public debt, a consequence of bank bail-outs, will oblige countries to more and continuing austerity programmes.
In this contribution, I want to summarize what is being prepared at the level of the European Union for Europe’s social future. There should be no misunderstandings: even if much of the work is done by the European Commission, it is fully in line with the wishes of the European Council, that is the national governments. The aim of this article, then, is not to blame the European institutions, but to show how the change of scale at which decision-making is done contributes to making the policy changes almost invisible. While trade unions and social movements are mainly working within their national democracies, their governments are preparing a new social paradigm at the European level. Moreover, many of the social changes are hidden in other policies or programmes, such as the internal market, EU2020, etc.
European Commission releases its Social Investment Package
- Details
- Category: Documents
What our social protection may look like in the future:
read the report and the proposals
Concerned African Scholars: Africa's Capital Losses. What can be done?
- Details
- Written by E.J. Fagan (GFI)
- Category: Analysis
We should have highlighted this back in the fall, but failed to do so. The Association of Concerned African Scholars (ACAS) released a fantastic series of articles titled, “Africa’s Capital Losses: What Can Be Done?” The series is edited by Léonce Ndikumana and James Boyce, members of the Task Force’s Economist’s Advisory Council, and includes articles by Global Financial Integrity and Task Force Director Raymond Baker, as well as Tax Justice Network’s John Christensen and Nicholas Shaxson. From the introduction:
“In their 2011 pathbreaking book, Africa’s Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent, Léonce Ndikumana and James Boyce demonstrate the systematic draining from Africa of resources by this global system, in which rich individuals and large companies hide income and assets from public scrutiny and from taxation by transferring them across borders. Africa’s situation is aggravated by its vulnerability in the world economy, by the weaknesses of African states, and by the misguided assumption that this pattern stems only from the personal corruption of African leaders. In fact, despite the many differences between the rich countries of the West and developing countries in Africa, the same structural realities and the same institutions are implicated in the “fiscal crises” of Europe and North America and in the failure of African states to capture and channel sufficient resources to development.
Read more: Concerned African Scholars: Africa's Capital Losses. What can be done?
