Tell the UN to put an end to tax abuse
Executive Summary – Full Open Letter Here: http://bit.ly/1vpEtyJ
Intense negotiations are underway this month at the United Nations
over the new Sustainable Development Goals that will be rolled out in 2015. But the SDGs are almost completely silent on one of the most important development issues of our generation: tax abuse. Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) is taking action to change this.
Tax abuse drains developing countries of hundreds of billions of dollars each year, vastly outstripping the total amount of aid that developing countries receive.
Many multinational corporations shift their profits to jurisdictions
where taxes are lower or even non-existent. Between 2002 and 2011, such practices robbed developing countries of $4.7 trillion, which is nearly six times the amount of official development assistance they received during the same period.
Wealthy individuals in developing countries also abuse the tax system: between 26 and 33 percent of all private financial wealth owned by people in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia is kept abroad. Because developing country governments are unable to tax these hidden funds, they lack the resources necessary to help their citizens escape poverty.
We have an opportunity to put an end to this destructive practice. Fifty prominent tax and development experts have signed an open letter calling on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to push for the inclusion of specific policies in the SDGs that would stop tax abuse once and for all.
Sign and circulate this petition to add your name to the open letter
and join the fight against tax abuse at the highest levels. You can
help us reach our goal of getting 2015 signatures before the UN
General Assembly meets on September 24.
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More than fifty experts have signed on to the open letter (http://bit.ly/1vpEtyJ)--their names are below. Join them in demanding that the SDGs be a force for tax justice.
Expert Signatories:
Robert Keohane, Professor of Public and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University
Anne-Marie Slaughter, Bert G. Kerstetter '66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Emerita, at Princeton University
Martin Rees, Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge
Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and member of the ASAP Advisory Board
Branko Milanovic, Presidential Fellow at the City University of New York and member of the ASAP Advisory Board
Henry Shue, Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford and member of the ASAP Advisory Board
Susan Rose-Ackerman, Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School
David Hulme, Director of the Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester and member of the ASAP Advisory Board
Sonia Bhalotra, Professor of Economics at the University of Essex and member of the ASAP Advisory Board
John Roemer, Elizabeth S. and A. Varick Professor of Political Science and Economics at Yale University and member of the ASAP Advisory Board
Ernst von Weizsäcker, Co-President of the Club of Rome
Nicole Rippin, Senior Economist at the German Development Institute
Jean-Pierre Lehmann, Professor Emeritus of International Political Economy at IMD Business School
Richard Murphy, Director of Tax Research UK
Sol Picciotto, Emeritus Professor of Law at Lancaster University Law School
Reuven Avi-Yonah, the Irwin I. Cohn Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School
Debapriya Bhattacharya, Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Policy Dialogue
Eleni Tsingou, Assistant Professor of Business and Politics at the Copenhagen Business School
Ronen Palan, Professor of International Political Economy at City University London
Lorraine Eden, Professor of Management at Texas A & M University
Martin Hearson, PhD candidate in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science
Wilson Prichard, Joint Research Director for the International Centre for Tax and Development at the Institute for Development Studies
Raymond Baker, President of Global Financial Integrity and member of the ASAP Advisory Board
Tom Cardamone, Managing Director of Global Financial Integrity
Dev Kar, Chief Economist at Global Financial Integrity
Heather Lowe, Legal Counsel and Director of Government Affairs at Global Financial Integrity
Krishen Mehta, Founding Director of Asia Initiatives
Vito Tanzi, Former Director of the Fiscal Affairs Division of the International Monetary Fund
John Christensen, Director of Tax Justice Network International
Jack Blum, Chair of Tax Justice Network USA
Daniel Reeves, Board Member of Tax Justice Network USA
Robin Hodess, USA Group Director--Research and Knowledge at Transparency International
Helen Dennis, Senior Advisor -- Poverty and Inequality, Christian Aid
Joseph Stead, Senior Advisor -- Economic Justice, Christian Aid
Anthea Lawson, Lead Investigator on Financial Institutions and Corruption at Global Witness
David McNair, Director of Transparency for the ONE Campaign
Ignacio Saiz, Executive Director of the Center for Economic and Social Rights
Niko Lusiani, Director of the Human Rights in Economic Policy program at the Center for Economic and Social Rights
Alnoor Ladha, Executive Director of /The Rules and member of the ASAP Advisory Board
Peter Wahl, Researcher at WEED -- Weltwirtschaft, Ökologie & Entwicklung
Stefano Prato, Managing Director at the Society for International Development
Caitlin Blaser, Director of Communications at Global Call to Action Against Poverty
Andrea Ordóñez, Research Coordinator for Southern Voice
Shaazka Beyerle, Author of "Curtailing Corruption: People Power for Accountability and Justice"
Paul Slovic, Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon and member of the ASAP Advisory Board
Alberto Cimadamore, Scientific Director of CROP Secretariat and member of the ASAP Advisory Board
Des Gasper, Professor of States, Societies, and World Development at the International Institute of Social Studies and member of the ASAP Advisory Board
Paul Kingston, Director of the Centre for Critical Development Studies and Associate Professor of Political Science and International Development Studies at the University of Toronto Scarborough
Richard Sandbrook, Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto
Alison Jaggar, College Professor of Distinction in the Department of Philosophy and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder
Darrel Moellendorf, Principle Investigator at the Normative Orders Cluster of Excellence at Goethe University Frankfurt
Simon Caney, Professor of Political Theory at the University of Oxford
Thomas Pogge, Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs and President of ASAP
Mitu Sengupta, Associate Professor of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University and member of the ASAP Board of Directors
Jason Hickel, Lecturer in Anthropology at the London School of Economics and member of the ASAP Board of Directors
Luis Cabrera, Associate Professor of Government and International Relations at Griffith University and member of the ASAP Board of Directors
Keith Horton, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Wollongong and member of the ASAP Board of Directors
Helen Yanacopulos, Senior Lecturer in International Politics and Development at the Open University and member of the ASAP Board of Directors
Ashok Acharya, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Delhi and member of the ASAP Board of Directors
Ellen Szarleta, Assistant Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Northwest and ASAP Director of Communications
Catarina Tully, Director of FromOverHere and member of the ASAP Board of Directors
Matthew Lindauer, Ph.D. student in Philosophy at Yale University and member of the ASAP Board of Directors
Miles Thompson, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, Politics, and Sociology at Canterbury Christ Church University and member of the ASAP Board of Directors
Paula Casal, ICREA Professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra and member of the ASAP Board of Directors