VIDEO: Tax Blacklists and Propaganda: Defeating the Discrimination and Pro-Poverty Agenda

We’re sharing this excellent live discussion between Caribbean Economist and Advisor Marla Dukharan, Alex Cobham, Economist and Chief Executive of the Tax Justice Network, and Professor Steven Dean, Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, “to find out the truth about the world’s biggest financial secrecy jurisdictions, the racial bias behind the tax blacklisting of former European colonies and developing states, and the history behind the discrimination in a global tax system designed to favour wealthy states.”

You can read Marla Dukharan’s research on the EU Blacklist here and there’s more further reading on this below.

We’ve written many times about the farce of the EU’s tax haven (and other) blacklists and how, if you want an objectively verifiable ranking, you need look no further than the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index. As Alex Cobham writes here, “There’s a long and largely ignominious tradition of tax haven blacklists, mainly at the OECD and IMF. They’ve tended to be subjective efforts, naming economically smaller jurisdictions with less political power, and steering well clear of major financial centres – regardless of their behaviour.” And incredibly, the EU’s tax haven list only applies to non-EU member states – and tortuously manages to not identify the US as non-cooperative, despite its well-earned #1 position on the Financial Secrecy Index. Well, how convenient…

Further reading:

• Barbados Today: https://barbadostoday.bb/2023/03/01/now-or-never/
• La Estrella de Panama (see Asi o Mas Claro? I and II): https://www.laestrella.com.pa/opinion/la-llorona/230307/llorona-7-marzo-2023
• Prof Steven Dean: https://www.brooklaw.edu/Contact-Us/Dean-Steven
• Colombia’s summit – our press release https://taxjustice.net/press/davos-colombia-announces-latin-americas-first-global-tax-summit-as-countries-gear-up-for-un-tax-negotiations/ and the Ministry of Finance page: https://www.minhacienda.gov.co/webcenter/portal/TributacionIncluyente/pages_TributacionIncluyente