Brisbane G20 event: be part of the world’s biggest mock tax haven

From Micah Challenge in Australia, an event that comes ahead of the G20 world leaders’ meeting in Brisbane due on November 15 and 16. They introduce it in their press release:

“On Saturday 8 November, hundreds of concerned Australians dressed as corporate accountants will transform part of Brisbane’s CBD into a tax evader’s paradise of palm trees, mocktails, beach chairs and briefcases to shed light on the issue of multinational tax dodging.”

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N.B. The Tax Justice Network apologises for the use of an image of a palm tree in this article to represent tax havenry. The palm tree trope is widely used across media to associate international tax abuse largely or exclusively with small tropical islands whose populations are predominantly non-white and/or Black-majority. Evidence shows that the vast majority of international tax abuse is driven by rich OECD countries like the UK, US, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands – yet it is small island nations that are often targeted by international policymakers while rich OECD countries are afforded exemptions. This colonial and structurally racist situation is bolstered by the use of the palm tree/island trope in media coverage of tax abuse. While the Tax Justice Network took the internal decision years ago to ban the use of the palm tree trope in our publications, we have kept our past uses of the trope up in order to be transparent about our past actions, rather than erase them, and to reaffirm our commitment to reject the trope going forward.