Richard J Murphy - How do tax havens work? -
In this third video in a series on tax havens I look at how tax havens work.
As I explained in the first video in the series, the key to understanding tax havens is to understand that their primary product is not now tax abuse, but a more general abuse of the regulation of other countries. Key to that process is secrecy.
This understanding gave rise to my theory, first published in 2009, of how tax havens really work. That understanding has underpinned much change in regulation since then and is reflected in the work of a number of authors, including that of Nick Shaxson, who wrote the best-selling ‘Treasure Islands’.
My theory is based around how the users of tax havens try to get around regulation by moving the recording of transactions from the place where they really are, and might usually be regulated, (‘here’, as I describe it), to either another identifiable place that should regulate them (‘somewhere’, as I call it), or to a place that does purposely not disclose that it may be regulating the transaction (‘elsewhere’ in my description, which refers to most tax haven activity), or to the ultimate goal of the tax haven user - which is ‘nowhere’, meaning that the transaction is knowingly not regulated anywhere at all.
Understanding these stages of separation is key to understanding how tax havens work. I explain how in this video. The paper in which the thinking was first explored is here.
https://fsi.taxjustice.net/Archive2011/Notes%20and%20Reports/SecrecyWorld.pdf
ABOUT RICHARD MURPHY
Richard Murphy is a chartered accountant. After training with what is now KPMG he established his a firm of accountants in London, of which he was subsequently senior partner, in parallel with a career as an entrepreneur and company director which lasted until his early 40s. He then moved to a career in campaigning and academia. He co-founded the Tax Justice Network in 2003, the Green New Deal in 2008, the Fair Tax Mark in 2013 and the Corporate Accountability Network in 2019. From 2015 to 2020 he was Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City, University of London and is now Visiting Professor of Accounting at Sheffield University Management School. His best known book is 'The Joy of Tax'.
Follow Richard on his Twitter: www.twitter.com/RichardJMurphy or on his blog: http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/
Recorded at Spotted in Studios
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