When it comes to taxes, there is one definitive trend in all countries: the wealthiest entities, be it billionaires, or multinational corporations, enjoy the lowest effective rates of taxation. And this is in a context where governments around the world are cutting down on welfare programmes because they ostensibly can’t afford the resources to sustain them. To reduce inequality, fair and effective taxation is absolutely critical, and yet, largely missing.

The European Union Tax Observatory (EU Tax Observatory) has come out with a report on this subject, titled ‘Global Tax Evasion Report’. It summarises the work of more than 100 researchers worldwide and quantifies the magnitude and dynamics of tax evasion.

We discuss this report and its findings.