Category: Tax
The Goals might not be not achieved if tax avoidance keeps moving the goalposts The Goals might not be not achieved if tax avoidance keeps moving the goalposts The Goals might not be not achieved if tax avoidance keeps moving the goalposts
Who wouldn’t want to buy a picture of the world in a decade’s time when all the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN Agenda 2030 have been successfully accomplished? Everyone, including investors, have succumbed to the charms of the shiny little SGDs pin badge promising a fixed version of the world at the other end of its rainbow. But who will pay for it is a different matter.
As much as what happens with the Paris Agreement, it is acknowledged that public coffers won't suffice to square the bill of climate neutrality and the just transition. Private capital flows will also need to be reoriented to fulfil the SDGs.
This assumption, however, can be a red herring. It is like looking for pennies down the sofa when, in reality, the riches to pay for all the SDGs are stashed in tax havens. Government finances have been looted by decades of white-glove tax avoidance - a totally legal practice, but one that is questionable on moral …