The Guardian's Felicity Lawrence recently filed an excellent article on global pineapple trade. Taking the example of Costa Rica, she outlined the low wages and union busting, the environmental harm caused by excessive use of agro-chemicals, and the injuries and health problems incurred by workers.
The article has touched several raw nerves, and much of the industry response has focussed on the "economic" benefit to Costa Rica. Employment creation is one, but this can be limited to low wage employment with little in the way of useful knowledge transfer. ...
Switzerland and Germany will take a step to resolve a spat on taxation on Thursday, the Swiss finance ministry said, after long running tensions over tax evasion and Swiss banking secrecy.
Citizens for Tax Justice's (CTJ) weekly Tax Justice Digest links the Google tax avoidance scandal to last week's revelation that multinational corporations are lobbying for a tax amnesty to repatriate billions of US$ "trapped" offshore: the lobbying by Multinationals for a tax amnesty.
From CTJ:
Corporate lobbyists are once again asking Congress and the Obama administration for a tax amnesty for "repatriated" offshore profits. U.S. corporations that shifted profits offshore would get to bring that money back to the U.S. without paying the corporate income tax at the normal statutory rate of 35...
Christian has just released a new video highlighting the important link between poverty and tax evasion in Guatemala. Check it out:
Hannah Richards, Christian Aid's communications and information officer for Latin America and the Caribbean, recently wrote about this problem in a blog post on the Christian Aid website after witnessing the devastating effects of tax-dodging on the ground in Guatemala.
Hannah writes:
