Month: September, 2017
In Houston, Texas – the fourth largest city in the United States – two Chinatown business communities have prospered due to an expansion in US-China cultural exchanges.
| September 30, 2017 | 8:18 pm | Analysis, China, Local/State | Comments closed

https://news.cgtn.com/news/7a516a4e78597a6333566d54/share.html

Houston Chinatowns prosper thanks to growing US-China exchanges

Culture
CGTN
2017-09-30 17:20 GMT+8

In Houston, Texas – the fourth largest city in the United States – two Chinatown business communities have prospered due to an expansion in US-China cultural exchanges.

The first Chinatown is located east of downtown, but today, a second area of the city has emerged as a thriving international district.

In the 1980s, the younger generation of Chinese entrepreneurs gave rise to this new Chinatown, creating a bustling community that covers an area of 16 square km in southwest Houston, roughly 20km from downtown Houston.

Dun Huang Plaza in Houston’s Chinatown. / Photo via 365thingsinhouston.com

The first business opened in the new Chinatown in 1983, which was designed and developed to meet the needs of America’s car-based society.

Today, thanks to many years of support and nurturing by the local Chinese community, the new Chinatown is home to an array of large and small shops, businesses, supermarkets and national banks, as well as being the shopping and business center for the local Asians population.

Because of the presence of the many banks in what is a relatively concentrated area, this new Chinatown has gained the nickname as “Houston Wall Street”, exemplifying its prosperity and importance.

And the prosperity of this new Houston Chinatown goes hand-in-hand with the rise of the new generation of ambitious and upwardly mobile Chinese.

“In the past, the old immigrants needed to spend a lot of time and hard physical work to make bread (money), so the progress was slow,” said Kenneth Li, chairman of Southwest Management District and member of Houston mayor’s International Advisory Board.

The Houston Police Department’s Chinatown station. /Photo from China Daily

Many young Chinese in Houston are now students and have a high educational background which gives them a bigger advantage in society and the marketplace, Li said in an interview with Xinhua.

Ruling Meng, a retired superconductivity scientist at the University of Houston and founding president of the Chinese Association of Professionals in Science and Technology (CAPST), said that she is a beneficiary of US-China people-to-people exchanges.

“I have always said that I am very grateful to the motherland for my training,” said Meng, who is over 80. “I was a college student in the 1950s in China, and the United States provided me with new opportunities for development.”

Meng said that economic conditions were not good then for Chinese people, but everyone studied hard. Even today, Meng is grateful to those who helped her along the way, and said she founded the CAPST in 1992 in order to give this type of care and support to younger Chinese scholars in Houston’s campuses when .

A shopping center in Houston’s Chinatown. /Photo via texasmonthly.com

Charlie Yao, president and CEO of Yuhuang Chemical Inc., which is based in Houston, is the former chairman of CAPST. He is among the new immigrants from China to the United States.

Many young Chinese today are white-collar professionals who have critical thinking skills and are open-minded, he said.

“China’s vigorous economic growth has helped to promote overseas Chinese to a higher level of living,” Yao said. “No other country in the world has been developing at a rate of more than 10 percent in the past few decades, but China made it.”

Jon R. Taylor, political science professor of University of St. Thomas in Houston, agrees with Yao. He said young Chinese professionals moved to Houston from other parts of the United States in pursuit of job opportunities and a better life, which in turn pushed the development of the new Chinatown in Houston.

Dun Huang Plaza in Houston’s Chinatown. /CNN Photo

Furthermore, Kenneth Li encouraged the new generation of Chinese to treat American mainstream society as a way of promoting the development of US-China cultural exchanges. It’s a win-win proposition as both cultures learn from and gain knowledge about each other.

Li believes that cultural exchanges are two-way in nature, as some local Chinese groups invite Americans to visit China.

“We should try our best to promote the people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States,” Li said. “With Confucian thought prevailing, Chinese are peace-loving people. We must send that message to the world.”

The street signs along Bellaire Boulevard in Houston’s Chinatown are posted in Mandarin characters as well as English script. /CNN Photo

Brian Lantz, a senior executive of Schiller Institute in Houston, said he is glad to see the emerging young generation of Chinese professionals in Houston, both in Chinatown and elsewhere.

“America will benefit from the growing roles of American Chinese and Chinese who are here in business,” he said.

While Chinese people are doing important work in academia and science, they also are bringing about improvements in the greater Houston community, saying, “I think we can all benefit.”

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency
Can we talk about our relationship to the oil industry? It’s not our savior | Opinion
| September 29, 2017 | 7:58 pm | Analysis, Economy, Local/State | Comments closed

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2017/09/time_to_face_the_crude_truth_a.html

Can we talk about our relationship to the oil industry? It’s not our savior | Opinion

Tugboats tow the Delta House oil and gas production facility away from port facilities in Aransas Pass, Texas and into the Gulf of Mexico. Covington-based LLOG Exploration began installing the $2 billion production facility in the Gulf of Mexico in late September 2014. (Photo by Redding Communications)
Tugboats tow the Delta House oil and gas production facility away from port facilities in Aransas Pass, Texas and into the Gulf of Mexico. Covington-based LLOG Exploration began installing the $2 billion production facility in the Gulf of Mexico in late September 2014. (Photo by Redding Communications)(Bob Redding)

Louisiana and its politicians have long embraced some unhealthy myths: Corruption in our politics isn’t so bad. Teachers are the real problem with our schools. Poor people are lazy. Climate change is a hoax. Oil is crucial to our economy because it employs so many workers and funds our government.

Few myths have damaged us more than the last one. Our blind allegiance to oil and gas has led to lax or poorly enforced environmental laws. The worst actors in the industry have contributed to the disappearance of our wetlands and poisoned our water.

And our eagerness to subsidize this industry has cost us billions in tax revenue. A 2015 report by the Legislative Auditor found that one exemption from one state tax — the severance tax on horizontal drilling — resulted in the loss of $1.1 billion from 2010 to 2014. Last year, the 27 state tax exemptions Louisiana grants to oil and gas interests amounted to $195 million. In 2012, during the height of the oil boom, the state let slip away $527 million in oil revenue; the following year, $462 million.

Since 2013, Louisiana has absolved one natural gas company, Cameron LNG, of more than $3 billion in property taxes. Since 2010, the state has awarded Cheniere Energy and its subsidiaries more than $3 billion in local and state tax subsidies. And in 2016, Louisiana gave Venture Global LNG $1.86 billion in property tax exemptions.

Total permanent jobs promised by those companies in return for the tax exemptions: about 1,400 (an average of $5.5 million in state and local subsidies per job). Industry officials claim without these generous tax breaks, they cannot afford to do business here.

That might be a stronger argument if energy exploration and refining weren’t already among the most profitable enterprises on Earth. Five of the 12 largest corporations in the world (by revenue) are oil companies, despite the slump in oil prices.

But these corporations provide plenty of good jobs for Louisiana workers, right? “The Louisiana oil and gas industry is one of the leading employers in the state,” the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association claims. The most recent employment numbers on its website — 64,000 — are from 2013, when oil was around $90 a barrel. The American Petroleum Institute (API), meanwhile, claims 291,00 Louisiana workers were employed in the industry in 2015.

The August 2017 report on industry employment from the Louisiana Workforce Development Commission, however, pegs the number working in or supporting oil and gas at about 40,000 or 2 percent of Louisiana’s total workforce. It’s likely the API’s 2015 numbers were wildly inflated. Even Louisiana oil industry lobbyists acknowledge a sharp jobs downturn caused by slumping oil prices.

Nationally, the API claims the oil and gas industry employed more than 10.3 million direct and indirect workers in the U.S. in 2015. Meanwhile, the BLS, which does not count indirect jobs, estimates the industry’s current national job number is 178,000.

Counting indirect jobs from a specific industry is an inexact science, so let’s consider only the API’s claim of 2.9 million “direct impact” jobs in 2015. According to the API study, almost a million of those jobs were at gas stations, where employees also sold cigarettes, beer and slushies.

The myth of oil as a once-and-future major employer and massive contributor to the economy is dangerous not only because it absolves the industry from paying its fair share in taxes; the myth also has strengthened the industry’s case as it lobbies to avoid or evade environmental regulations in Washington and the states.

The jobs narrative has led to another harmful myth: We can have oil industry jobs or a clean environment, but we cannot have both. Well, look no further than California, where the nation’s toughest environmental regulations exist in harmony with a vibrant oil and gas industry. (To their credit, Gov. John Bel Edwards and six coastal parish governments are suing to hold oil companies accountable for how they damaged portions of our coast.)

Pitting jobs against a clean environment is also how industry supporters crush regulations to address climate change. That jobs-versus-environment argument ignores that oil and gas companies are automating tasks that once required warm bodies.

The real issue is not jobs so much as how states like Louisiana suffer when the oil and gas industry doesn’t pay its fair share in taxes. As the oil companies automate, their profit margins will increase. And their lobbyists continue persuading legislators in places like Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma and Washington, D.C., to increase or maintain billions in “drilling incentives.”

For decades, Louisiana has acted like providing corporate welfare to the oil industry is our patriotic duty. We’ve behaved like a feckless colony and allowed oil companies to swoop in, scoop up our oil and gas and pay us little in return. The industry buys the fealty of our politicians who have persuaded us that it’s our salvation.

It’s not. And if Louisiana wishes to enter the 21st Century, it’s time to wake up, smell the crude and quit behaving like a third-world petro state.

Robert Mann, an author and former U.S. Senate and gubernatorial staffer, holds the Manship Chair in Journalism at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. Read more from him at his blog, Something Like the Truth. Follow him on Twitter @RTMannJr or email him at bob.mann@outlook.com.

AskProfWolff: What careers help spread socialism?
| September 27, 2017 | 8:07 pm | Richard Wolff, socialism | Comments closed

1 in 3 U.S. families struggle to afford diapers: report
| September 25, 2017 | 8:35 pm | Economy, Poverty in the USA | Comments closed

http://www.nola.com/family/index.ssf/2017/09/families_cant_afford_diapers.html

Updated on September 25, 2017 at 2:57 PM

A survey by Huggies in partnership with the National Diaper Bank Network finds one in three families in the United States struggles to afford diapers for their children, CBS News reports.

The report says the average cost of diapers for one child is $18 a week, or $936 a year. The cost is pushing some families to experience what the survey calls “diaper need” – the struggle to provide enough diapers to keep a baby or toddler clean, dry and healthy on a consistent basis.

Experts say keeping children in dirty diapers longer not only increases health risks, including urinary tract infections and diaper rash, but can also lead to emotional stress and depressive symptoms in parents stressed about not being able to provide for their children, the report says.

The report says the survey questioned parents in 1,000 U.S. households with young children, more than two-thirds of whom are married and employed.

Read the full CBS News report.

Single-payer health care – its time has come: Mark Dimondstein
| September 25, 2017 | 8:04 pm | Medicare for All, Single Payer 676 | 1 Comment
Mark Dimondstein, President of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) and member of the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO, is the latest to write an Op Ed supporting a single payer healthcare system. Dimondstein is in a good position to compare the medical benefits his members receive with those of Canadian postal workers who already enjoy a medicare for all healthcare system.

Single-payer health care – its time has come: Mark Dimondstein

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congress is back from its summer recess and the problems with our nation’s health care system haven’t gone away. How to fix health care is once again being hotly debated. Recently, President Donald Trump warned Republican senators that they must do something or be confronted with the dangers of “single-payer” health care. But, single-payer shouldn’t be the boogeyman — its time has come.

As a postal worker and now president of the American Postal Workers Union, I’ve had many occasions to meet with Canadian postal workers. The lives and dreams of postal workers just across Lake Erie are similar to workers in Northeast Ohio and other parts of the United States. One huge difference stands out – Canadian health care. Canadians never worry about being denied access to medical care. Unlike in the United States, no one is forced to choose between food and medicine. A major illness won’t drive them to bankruptcy or out of their homes.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich joins bipartisan governors in opposing Graham-Cassidy health care bill

Their letter said the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has held hearings on ways “to make individual health insurance more stable and affordable,” and that committee’s efforts should be supported rather than the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson amendment.

Canada’s single-payer health care system is similar to Medicare but in Canada every man, woman and child has cradle-to-grave coverage for their doctor, hospital and nursing care – with full choice of physicians. The government also negotiates affordable drug costs with pharmaceutical companies.

2009: The ins and outs of Canada’s health system

Imagine how much less stressful our lives would be without co-pays, deductibles, billing for services, lifetime limits or huge insurance premiums. According to University of Massachusetts Economics Professor Gerald Friedman, 95 percent of U.S. households would save money under a single-payer plan.

It is striking that the Canadian success is rarely discussed in the current health care debate. The leadership of both major political parties treat health care as a privilege rather than a human right. The profits of the medical industrial complex sadly take center stage over the people’s interests.

Most of the Democratic Party leadership is wedded to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). While some measures of the ACA should be preserved, such as coverage for the 153 million Americans with pre-existing conditions, the law has failed. It is not affordable. It contains no public option, does nothing to lower pharmaceutical prices, is a boon to the insurance companies and still leaves tens of millions uninsured and millions more with inferior insurance plans.

The failed legislation promoted by the Republican leadership is far worse. The GOP plans would gut Medicaid (used by one in five Americans and two-thirds of nursing home patients). Their plans would drive 22 million people from health insurance rolls, according to the Congressional Budget Office; incentivize employers to eliminate health coverage; limit coverage for pre-existing conditions; and drastically raise medical costs for seniors – all while giving billions in tax breaks to the wealthiest.

Most workers our union represents have employer-based health insurance. Every year we are paying more and receiving fewer benefits. A postal employee typically pays $6,000 a year for their share of family plan premiums – plus co-pays, deductibles and co-insurance.  A “Canadian style” system would offer financial relief, even to those currently insured.

Donald Trump was right back in 2000 when he said: “We must have universal health care. Just imagine the improved quality of life for our society as a whole….The Canadian-style, single-payer system… helps Canadians live longer and healthier than Americans…. There are fewer medical lawsuits, less loss of labor to sickness, and lower costs to companies paying for the medical care of their employees.”

According to the most recent figures, the United States spends 17.8Â percent of GDP on health care — more per capita than any other country. More than 25 percent of health care expenses are administrative – money diverted to needless insurance industry overhead and profits. (Twice that of Canada.)  U.S. citizens average $9,000 a year in health-related costs.

Yet, health outcomes are dismal. The United States ranks 34th in life expectancy. (Canada ranks 13.) A 2017 study by the Commonwealth Fund, found that the United States ranks last of the 11 most “developed” countries in health care quality, access, results and efficiency.

The ACA should be replaced with a better system. The recent debate between bad (“Obamacare”) and worse (“Trumpcare”) fails to meet the health care needs of the 99 percent. Let’s learn from our neighbor and demand single-payer universal health coverage – “Medicare for All!”

It is a proven, simple, cost-effective, and just way to heal what ails us.

Mark Dimondstein is president of the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union and a vice president of the AFL-CIO.

http://tinyurl.com/yanzznro

Issued by:

Kay Tillow, Coordinator

All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551

Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayer.org
https://www.facebook.com/unionsforsinglepayer

HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a
greatly improved Medicare to everyone residing in the U. S. Patients will
choose their own physicians and hospitals.

HR 676 would cover every person for all necessary medical care including
prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and
preventive care, emergency services, dental (including oral surgery,
periodontics, endodontics), mental health, home health, physical therapy,
rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care and correction,
hearing services including hearing aids, chiropractic, durable medical
equipment, palliative care, podiatric care, and long term care.

HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save hundreds of
billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the
private health insurance industry.

HR 676 has been endorsed by 633 union organizations including 154 Central
Labor Councils/Area Labor Federations and 44 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT,
OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX,
IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI, MT, NE, NJ, NY, NV, MA,
RI, NH, ID).

The list of union endorsers.
The sample endorsement resolution.

09/25/2017

Africa/Global: How Women Lose from Tax Injustice
| September 25, 2017 | 8:02 pm | Africa, struggle for the equality of women | Comments closed

AfricaFocus Bulletin September 25, 2017 (170925) (Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

A new report from the Association for Women in Development (AWID), authored by Dr. Attiya Waris in Nairobi, makes a powerful case that women lose disproportionately from illicit financial flows, which reduce the tax base and deprive states of the resources to invest in critical public goods, and that addressing this issue is key to efforts to combat gender inequality. The point should not be surprising, but too often the impact of tax evasion and tax avoidance is cloaked in jargon that makes it less visible than cases such as overt discrimination against women in employment and wages. In contrast, this report stands out for its clarity. AfricaFocus strongly recommends the full version, which is available on-line at http://tinyurl.com/ych3zce3

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains selected excerpts, as well as a short set of background notes prepared by AfricaFocus on the context of related debates in the United States.

Two other examples highlighting the impact of illicit financial flows through tax avoidance by multinational companies are reports by Action Aid (2010) on SAB Miller in Ghana (http://tinyurl.com/ych3zce3) and on Associated British Foods (2013) in Zambia http://www.africafocus.org/docs13/tax1302.php).

ActionAid also has a short (3.5 minute) animated video highlighting the impact of this in the Zambia case (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijtOErKjPMg). [Whether or not you have time to read the reports, you can watch and share this video!]

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on tax injustice, illicit financial flows, and related issues, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

 

Illicit Financial Flows: Why We Should Claim These Resources for Gender, Economic and Social Justice

by Dr Attiya Waris

Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID)

July 28, 2017

http://www.awid.org – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/ych3zce3

Editor’s note: The conceptual distinction between a narrow and wider definition of illicit financial flows is often confusing. This paper begins with a very clear short explanation and justification for using the wider definition. For an earlier slightly longer discussion, prepared by AfricaFocus Bulletin in November 2015, see “Defining Illicit Financial Flows” http://tinyurl.com/yamhlajc

 

Concept and Scale of Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs)

The concept of illicit financial flows (IFFs) is characterised by a lack of a unique consensual definition. Cobham, for example, explains the difference between a narrow and wider definition as follows:

“There are two main definitions of illicit financial flows (IFF). One equates ‘illicit’ with ‘illegal’, so that IFFs are movements of money or capital from one country to another that are illegally earned, transferred, and/or utilized. This would include individual and corporate tax evasion but not avoidance (which is legal), and other criminal activity like bribery or the trafficking of drugs or people.

The other relies on the dictionary definition of ‘illicit’ as ‘forbidden by law, rules or custom’ – encompassing the illegal but also including the socially unpalatable, such as the multinational corporate tax avoidance”.

Editor’s note: This Venn diagram shows the overlap between illegal and illegimate financial flows. Almost all illegal flows are also illegitimate, with exceptions such as family remittances which may bypass legal foreign currency laws.

For the purpose of this brief, we will use the broader definition that encompasses tax evasion, particularly by multinational corporations (MNCs). This is because the strong corporate lobby has largely shaped the very design of tax laws around the world. Exercising their economic and political influence on countries, they can define what type of tax avoidance is considered legal or illegal in different countries according to their profit interests.

Illicit financial flows can be broken down into three main types:

  1. Proceeds from corrupt dealings: For example, bribes by corporations to secure public contracts/permits or false declaration of corporate profits in order to evade tax payment, especially by extractive industries such as mining and oil exploration.
  2. Proceeds from criminal activities: A system of bank secrecy is necessary to conceal the origins of illegally obtained money (e.g. from human trafficking or sale of illegal arms), typically by means of transfers involving foreign banks or legitimate businesses – a process known as “money laundering”.
  3. Proceeds from commercial tax abuse: tax abuse includes both tax evasion and tax avoidance by corporations and wealthy elites by using, for example, anonymous shell companies in secrecy jurisdictions 4 that hide who the beneficial owners really are and/or obscure information from tax authorities. Another form of commercial tax abuse by MNC’s is to over quote imports or under quote exports, to hide the real value of products, and therefore profits – a process known as “trade mispricing”.

The exact amount of money being transferred through these systems is hard to calculate, because IFFs can only be traced through the international banking system. This does not account for money that simply moves from one place to another, within or across to states, without the aid of the banking system, for example, cash in exchange for political favors or ivory in exchange for small arms. While estimating just how much money is lost through IFFs can be a difficult task due to the inherent secrecy involved in their movement, there is consensus that they represent a tremendous problem.

The Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC) released an infographic (http://tinyurl.com/yde4gqsa) summarizing the different existing estimates. For example, using data of trade misinvoicing, the Global Financial Integrity estimates, that as much as 7.8 trillion was lost by developing and emerging countries to IFFs from 2004 to 2013, and that this loss is getting bigger.

The landmark report of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa (also known as the Mbeki report) estimates Africa to be losing more than $50 billion annually in IFFs. This reality is having severe consequences to the development of the continent. “Their economies do not benefit from the multiplier effects of the domestic use of such resources, whether for consumption or investment. Such lost opportunities impact negatively on growth and ultimately on job creation in Africa”, 6 states the report.

To illustrate the effects on development, the same report cites a study (O’Hare and others 2013) on the potential impact of IFFs on under- five child and infant mortality in the region. “Without IFFs, the Central African Republic would have been able to reach the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 on child mortality in 45 years compared with the 218 years at current rates of progress. Other striking examples are Mauritania, 19 years rather than 198 years; Swaziland, 27 years rather than 155 years; and the Republic of Congo, 10 years rather than 120 years. Perhaps most striking is the finding that if IFFs had been arrested by the turn of the century, Africa would reach MDG 4 by 2016” . The sheer amount shows that these ‘lost’ resources could have assisted states nationally and regionally to achieve the unmet Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Moving forward, this could play a crucial role in financing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and mobilizing the maximum available resources to ensure the realization of human rights and social justice.

Efforts to quantify the gendered impact and implications of IFFs across the African continent are needed more than ever. The African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) in partnership with Trust Africa, set out an important path in 2016 to strategically discuss with other organizations, how to effectively address this problem and propose political solutions supported by global processes to curb IFFs.

The Disproportionate Impact of IFFs on Gender Justice

Gender impacts of IFFs tend to be understood and studied at the national and even local level, with scarce literature that focuses on the global impact of IFFs as an obstacle to the realization of women’s rights and gender justice.

We take a look at some specific impacts here:

Impact on delivery of social services

An inadequate tax collection system has a direct impact on a country’s budget deficit. The result has commonly been a reduction in key areas such as education, health care, cares facilities, which has a direct impact on women and women-headed households that are more vulnerable to national budget constraints.

Despite external constraints, decisions on budget spending at the national level are highly political and gendered. The decision to choose between privileging certain areas like militarization and propaganda over social spending on people’s needs in the areas mentioned above, is part of maintaining the status quo of power by local and global elites. The lower the investment in education, the easier to control a population kept on survival mode.

The feminisation of poverty is a persistent phenomenon in which women are overrepresented amongst the most poor, with low-paid and poor-quality jobs. Because of unequal gendered power relations and entrenched cultural stereotypes that define women and girls identities and social roles, they predominantly do unpaid care work across the world. This situation has an impact on the advancement of women and girls’ human rights It perpetuates their impoverishment, acting as an obstacle to women and girls participation in the paid economy, political life and bodily and sexual autonomy. For these reasons, women tend to be more dependent on public social services, which have the capacity to shift the unpaid care burden that falls disproportionately on their shoulders. Failure to mobilize public resources therefore robs women and children of the much-needed public services, which reflects a lack of recognition of the role of the care economy in subsidizing the entire economy.

Unemployment and under investment in the economy

When monies are illicitly transferred out of developing countries, the loss of public resources impacts negatively the economic development of a country and ultimately job creation. Similarly, when profits are illicitly transferred out of developing countries, reinvestment and the concomitant economic expansion to create local jobs are not taking place in these countries.

Lack of public investment has consequently led to lack of employment creation and greater unemployment, hitting women particularly hard. According to 2016 ILO figures, in many regions in the world, in comparison to men, women are more likely to become and remain unemployed. They have fewer chances to participate in the labour force and – when they do – often have to accept lower quality jobs. Women are typically the first to lose their jobs and/or accept shorter hours and bad working conditions to keep jobs.

Regressive fiscal policies

IFFs often trigger regressive tax policies – countries facing budget deficit tend to cover that through increased consumption taxes rather than taxing the wealthy. Neoliberal assumptions that taxing the wealthy would result in the withdrawal of private investment in a given economy have permeated so deeply in economic policy decision-making, that putting profit over people has become an unquestionable reality worldwide, even as it remains fundamentally a political decision. Increasing consumption taxes is in many cases the less costly of options for governments (both economically and politically). After all, media corporations will not attack them as they would if they tax the wealthy and also because, unfortunately, in most cases there is not enough of a ‘counter-power’ / people power to stop them.

A great way to get middle and even working class people to support governments that will not invest in social welfare, is the argument that the impoverished don’t pay taxes and live off benefits that formalized workers sustain with their contributions. The invisibility of consumer taxes, and of who pays them the most in proportion to their income, is an effective tool for preserving the status quo. Countries that refuse to put into place mechanisms to efficiently tax those with greater wealth and income (both individuals and corporations) typically resort to indirect tax mechanisms – such as high rates of value added tax (VAT) – that collect taxes from consumer goods or services rather than from individuals or companies. These have a particularly negative effect on informal workers and people living in poverty – the majority of whom are women – as they spend a large part of their income on taxes for the essential goods and services they consume to sustain livelihoods, perpetuating the cycle of poverty and aid dependence.

Marta Luttgrodt, 48, sells SABMiller beer from her stall     in the shadow of the company’s Accra Brewery, Ghana.     Photograph: Jane Hahn/Jane Hahn/ActionAid    

A poignant example is the SAB Miller case in Ghana where Marta, who sells beer at her small stall in Accra, Ghana outside the SAB Miller factory, was paying more tax than the factory right next to her informal stand. This situation does little to encourage informal workers to register as formal workers, as this would further increase their tax burden. As a result, this perpetuates a situation in which informal workers are ineligible to receive social services like health and pension benefits; yet corporations and large businesses with huge profits are not pushed to contribute to building and sustaining the infrastructure for these same basic services.

Principles of Equality and non-discrimination

Tax policies can play a crucial role in reducing inequality and redistributing resources in order to level the playing field as much as possible.

The failure to prevent corruption and the fact that tax amnesties continue to be granted to large corporations, fuel the desire among common taxpayers to be part of those that outwit the state and its tax administration.

Equitable and progressive tax policies, based on human rights, have the potential to reduce inequalities and redistribute resources to achieve development goals and end impoverishment. Yet the wealthy few access legal and financial advice and services to better exploit tax loopholes, or open undeclared foreign bank accounts in low-tax jurisdictions.

Reliance on debt and development cooperation

Hidden wealth also increases inequality between developed and developing countries. For instance the African Tax Administration Forum estimates that up to one-third of Africa’s wealth is being held abroad. This wealth and its associated income are beyond the reach of African tax authorities. It deprives countries of resources that could be used to mitigate inequality, and further enrich donor countries, where it is stored. This income could address the over-dependence on overseas development assistance (ODA), and shift the balance of power between donor and recipient countries; and enable self-determined development priorities and outcomes, rather than those imposed by ODA conditionality, including trade conditions.

Threat to Women’s Peace and security

Lost resources through IFFs often cannot be used legitimately and end up fuelling criminal activity, including illegal arms trade, human trafficking – of which 49% of victims are women and 21% are girls 24 – and other activities undermining peace and human rights.

The data is patchy given the illegal nature of IFFs, but evidence gathered by many including Cobham, the Tax Justice Network and the report of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows out of Africa, noted that “IFF thrive on conflict and insecurity and also exacerbate both, undermining the financial and political prospects for effective states to deliver and support development progress.”

Considering the well-documented impact that war and conflict has on women and girls, the issue of IFFs is of outmost importance to tackle the financial enablers behind conflict and militarization.

Resourcing for women’s rights and gender justice

One of the biggest challenges facing the implementation of long agreed commitments on human rights, women’s rights and gender equality and related goals, like those contained in Agenda 2030, is ensuring that resources are sufficiently allocated.

States have an obligation to mobilize the maximum available resources for the realization of human rights. Progressive taxation plays a key role in mobilizing public resources and is a key tool for addressing economic inequality, including gender inequality. The hidden resources of illicit financial flows must be unlocked and returned to bolster domestic resourcing of development goals and gender equality.

Editor’s note: The following notes were prepared by AfricaFocus Bulletin as background for the visit of a delegation to the United States by representatives of African trade unions & civil society organizations, organized by the Solidarity Center and ITUC-Africa on September 20-30, 2017. The delegation, which is visiting Washington, DC and the San Francisco Bay Area, is meeting with activists and policymakers to exchange views on strategies to combat inequality, tax injustice, and illicit financial flows. The delegation includes Joel Odigie, Coordinator Human and Trade Union Rights, African Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa); Claudine Barigye, of the East African Trade Union Confederation; Luckystar Miyandazi, Policy Officer African Institutions Program, European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) and former Africa Coordinator for Africa for ActionAid’s tax justice program; and Gyekye Tanoh, head of the Political Economy Unit at Third World Network Africa.

 

The United States and the International Debate on Illicit Financial Flows

In Africa, the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows (https://www.uneca.org/iff) and the Stop the Bleeding Campaign to End Illicit Financial Flows from Africa (http://stopthebleedingafrica.org/) have put this term and this issue on the agenda for African governments and civil society organizations around the continent.

In contrast, the term is not very familiar even among policy analysts in the United States, but the issues of tax justice, tax evasion, and tax avoidance are central to debate in both political circles and among social justice organizations. The focus is primarily on the domestic issue of how the rich do not pay their fair share. There is also an understanding that this has an international dimension, but there is little awareness of how the United States itself contributes to illicit financial flows. The challenge is to make these connections. This background note provides several resources useful for doing so.

Financial Secrecy Index, Tax Justice Network http://www.financialsecrecyindex.com/

The Financial Secrecy Index ranks jurisdictions according to their secrecy and the scale of their offshore financial activities. A politically neutral ranking, it is a tool for understanding global financial secrecy, tax havens or secrecy jurisdictions, and illicit financial flows or capital flight.

An estimated $21 to $32 trillion of private financial wealth is located, untaxed or lightly taxed, in secrecy jurisdictions around the world. Secrecy jurisdictions Рa term we often use as an alternative to the more widely used term tax havens Рuse secrecy to attract illicit and illegitimate or abusive financial flows. Illicit cross-border financial flows have been estimated at $1-1.6 trillion per year: dwarfing the US$135 billion or so in global foreign aid. Since the 1970s African countries alone have lost over $1 trillion in capital flight, while combined external debts are less than $200 billion. So Africa is a major net creditor to the world Рbut its assets are in the hands of a wealthy ̩lite, protected by offshore secrecy; while the debts are shouldered by broad African populations.

Top 15 countries: 1. Switzerland, 2. Hong Kong, 3. USA, 4. Singapore, 5. Cayman Islands, 6. Luxembourg, 7. Lebanon, 8. Germany, 9. Bahrain, 10. United Arab Emirates (Dubai), 11. Macao, 12. Japan, 13. Panama, 14. Marshall Islands, 15. United Kingdom

Fact Sheet on Offshore Corporate Loopholes, Americans for Tax Fairness https://americansfortaxfairness.org/ – direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/y7kmqs8x

“Many U.S. corporations use offshore tax havens and other accounting gimmicks to avoid paying as much as $90 billion a year in federal income taxes. A large loophole at the heart of U.S. tax law enables corporations to avoid paying taxes on foreign profits until they are brought home. Known as “deferral,” it provides a huge incentive to keep profits offshore as long as possible.

Deferral gives corporations enormous incentives to use accounting tricks to make it appear that profits earned here were generated in a tax haven. Profits are funneled through subsidiaries, often shell companies with few employees and little real business activity. Effectively, firms launder U.S. profits to avoid paying U.S. Taxes.”

Background notes on tax justice and illicit financial flows in U.S. political context

Prepared by AfricaFocus Bulletin for Solidarity Center Mini-Symposium, September 28, 2017 Africa & the U.S.: Illicit Financial Flows, Tax Justice, and Economic Inequality

The “tax reform” debate

“The big battle throughout the fall will be taxes. The Republicans are trying to decide whether to go for massive tax cuts–particularly for corporations, which are awash in cash, and the rich–or massive tax cuts plus an overhaul of the tax system that will permanently favor the wealthy and the corporations (and probably hurt the middle class).” – Brooklyn College political scientist Corey Robin, Facebook post, September 2, 2017 https://www.facebook.com/corey.robin1/posts/1488929127839470

“It’s a Myth That Corporate Tax Cuts Mean More Jobs,” by Sarah Anderson The New York Times, August 30, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/y8fqapyq

“The arithmetic for us is simple,” AT&T’s chief executive, Randall Stephenson, said on CNBC in May. If Congress were to cut the 35 percent tax on corporate profits to 20 percent, he declared, “I know exactly what AT&T would do — we’d invest more” in the United States. Every $1 billion in tax savings would create 7,000 well-paying jobs, Mr. Stephenson went on to say. The correlation between lower corporate taxes and more jobs, he assured viewers, runs “very, very tight.”

As Congress prepares to take up tax legislation this fall, including an effort to reduce the corporate tax rate, this bold jobs claim merits examination. Notably, it comes from the chief executive of a company that’s already paying comparatively little in federal taxes.

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, AT&T enjoyed an effective tax rate of just 8 percent between 2008 and 2015, despite recording a profit in the United States each year, by exploiting tax breaks and loopholes. (The company argues that it pays significant taxes, at a rate close to 34 percent in recent years, but that includes deferred taxes and state and local levies.) Despite the enormous savings AT&T has realized, the company has been downsizing. Although it hires thousands of people a year, the company, by our analysis at the Institute for Policy Studies, reduced its total work force by nearly 80,000 jobs between 2008 and 2016, accounting for acquisitions and spinoffs each involving more than 2,000 workers.

Institute for Policy Studies report: “Corporate Tax Cuts Boost CEO Pay, Not Jobs” http://www.ips-dc.org – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/y7fdkovy 3-minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIdOkaeqe2E

House Speaker Paul Ryan is proposing to cut the statutory federal corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent. President Trump wants to slash the rate even further, to just 15 percent. Their core argument? Lowering the tax burden will lead to more and better jobs.

To investigate this claim, this report is the first to analyze the job creation records of the 92 publicly held U.S. corporations that reported a U.S. profit every year from 2008 through 2015 and paid less than 20 percent of these earnings in federal income tax. Did these reduced tax rates actually lead to greater employment within the 92 firms? The data we have compiled give a definitive — and sobering — answer.

The money-laundering debate and the Trump investigation

Dan Froomkin, “Trump’s World of Luxury Real Estate is Fueled by Money-Laundering” American Constitution Society Blog, August 31, 2017

Brief excerpt. Full article at: http://tinyurl.com/y93w93f8

The ultra-high-end real estate business, where Donald Trump made a lot of his money, is the easiest place for oligarchs and others to launder large amounts of illicit cash. And because several of the lawyers on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russian connections with the Trump presidential campaign are specialists in money-laundering and other financial crimes, some observers are speculating that he may be looking into Trump’s past business dealings to see if any of those connections are relevant to the matter at hand.

The fact that money-launderers flock to luxury real estate is nothing new, and isn’t much of a mystery either. It’s the direct result of a major loophole in U.S. government rules that require banks to report cash deposits over $10,000 — but allow property owners to accept $10 million in cash for a condo without divulging who gave it to them.

For fraudsters, drug cartels, oligarchs and corrupt foreign government officials looking for a way to launder huge sums of illicit cash — and park it somewhere safe — high-end real estate is the investment of choice. “You can put a lot of money in one place at one time, without raising any eyebrows,” says Heather Lowe, legal counsel for the dirty-money watchdog group Global Financial Integrity. The Treasury Department explains it this way: “The real estate market can be an attractive vehicle for laundering illicit gains because of the manner in which it appreciates in value, ‘cleans’ large sums of money in a single transaction, and shields ill-gotten gains from market instability and exchange-rate fluctuations.”

A New York Times series in 2015 found that more than half of the $8 billion spent each year on New York residences that cost more than $5 million comes from shell corporations that mask the real owners’ identities, one possible sign of moneylaundering.

Global Witness, “Undercover in New York,” January 2016 https://www.globalwitness.org/shadyinc/

“We went undercover and approached 13 New York law firms. We deliberately posed as someone designed to raise red flags for money laundering. We said we were advising an African minister who had accumulated millions of dollars, and we wanted to buy a Gulfstream Jet, a brownstone and a yacht. We said we needed to get the money into the U.S. without detection.

To be clear, the meetings with the lawyers were all preliminary. None of the law firms took our investigator on as a client, and no money was moved. Nonetheless, the results were shocking; all but one of the the lawyers had suggestions on how to move the funds. To see what some of them said, watch [this 3-minute video]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8pgI60GrvU

Current Congressional Legislation related to Illicit Financial Flows and Tax Justice

Corporate Transparency Act of 2017 A bill to amend title 31, United States Code, to ensure that persons who form corporations or limited liability companies in the United States disclose the beneficial owners of those corporations or limited liability companies, in order to prevent wrongdoers from exploiting United States corporations and limited liability companies for criminal gain, to assist law enforcement in detecting, preventing, and punishing terrorism, money laundering, and other misconduct involving United States corporations and limited liability companies, and for other purposes.

  1. 1717: Sponsor Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), 1 cosponsor, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s1717 H.R. 3089: Sponsor Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), 10 cosponsors (5R, 5D) https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr3089

Related background on beneficial ownership https://thefactcoalition.org/issues/incorporation-transparency

Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act A bill to end offshore corporate tax avoidance, and for other purposes.

Summary: This bill authorizes the Department of the Treasury to impose restrictions on foreign jurisdictions or financial institutions to counter money laundering and efforts to significantly impede U.S. tax enforcement. It amends the Internal Revenue Code to expand reporting requirements for certain foreign investments and accounts held by U.S. persons, and amends the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to: (1) require corporations to disclose certain financial information on a country-by-country basis, and (2) impose penalties for failing to disclose offshore holdings.

  1. 841: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), no cosponsors https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s851 H.R. 1932: Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), 59 cosponsors, all Democrats https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr1932

Related background on country-by-country reporting https://thefactcoalition.org/resources/country-by-country-reporting

Inclusive Prosperity Act of 2017 A bill to impose a tax on certain trading transactions to invest in our families and communities, improve our infrastructure and our environment, strengthen our financial security, expand opportunity and reduce market volatility.

  1. 805: Sen. Bernard Sanders (D-VT), no cosponsors https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s805 H.R. 144: Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), 23 cosponsors, all Democrats https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr1144

Related background on financial transaction (“Robin Hood”) taxes http://www.robinhoodtax.org/how/everything-you-need-to-know

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| September 25, 2017 | 7:56 pm | Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) | Comments closed