The hidden wealth of nations : the scourge of tax havens / Gabriel Zucman ; translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan ; with a foreword by Thomas Piketty.
2015
HJ2336 .Z8313 2015 (Mapit)
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Details
Title
The hidden wealth of nations : the scourge of tax havens / Gabriel Zucman ; translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan ; with a foreword by Thomas Piketty.
Author
Zucman, Gabriel, author.
Uniform Title
Richesse cachée des nations. English
ISBN
9780226245423 hardcover
022624542X hardcover
9780226245560 electronic book
022624542X hardcover
9780226245560 electronic book
Published
Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2015.
Copyright
©2015
Language
English
Language Note
Translated from the French.
Description
xii, 129 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Call Number
HJ2336 .Z8313 2015
Dewey Decimal Classification
336.24/16
Summary
We are well aware of the rise of the 1% as the rapid growth of economic inequality has put the majority of the world's wealth in the pockets of fewer and fewer. One much-discussed solution to this imbalance is to significantly increase the rate at which we tax the wealthy. But with an enormous amount of the world's wealth hidden in tax havens--in countries like Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Cayman Islands--this wealth cannot be fully accounted for and taxed fairly. No one, from economists to bankers to politicians, has been able to quantify exactly how much of the world's assets are currently hidden--until now. Gabriel Zucman is the first economist to offer reliable insight into the actual extent of the world's money held in tax havens. And it's staggering. In The Hidden Wealth of Nations, Zucman offers an inventive and sophisticated approach to quantifying how big the problem is, how tax havens work and are organized, and how we can begin to approach a solution. His reasearch reveals that tax havens are a quickly growing danger to the world economy. In the past five years, the amount of wealth in tax havens has increased over 25%--there has never been as much money held offshore as there is today. This hidden wealth accounts for at least $7.6 trillion, equivalent to 8% of the global financial assets of households. Fighting the notion that any attempts to vanquish tax havens are futile, since some countries will always offer more advantageous tax rates than others, as well as the counterargument that since the financial crisis tax havens have disappeared, Zucman shows how both sides are actually very wrong. In [this book], he offers an ambitious agenda for reform, focused on ways in which countries can change the incentives of tax havens. Only by first understanding the enormity of the secret wealth can we begin to estimate the kind of actions that would force tax havens to give up their practices. Zucman's work has quickly become the gold standard for quantifying the amount of the world's assets held in havens. In this concise book, he lays out in approachable language how the international banking system works and the dangerous extent to which the large-scale evasion of taxes is undermining the global market as a whole. -- Inside jacket flaps.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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Table of Contents
Introduction: acting against tax havens
A century of offshore finance
The missing wealth of nations
Mistakes
What to do?: a new approach
The tax avoidance of multinational corporations.
A century of offshore finance
The missing wealth of nations
Mistakes
What to do?: a new approach
The tax avoidance of multinational corporations.