The words 'tax haven' do not sound unfamiliar, but distant. We believe that it is not something that has to do with us or usordinary citizens, but the truth is that the money invested in tax havens is money that corresponds to us as a society .
It is money that the state stops receiving and that could be invested in social policies, so battered and cut.
We explain to you what is a tax haven, what are the most common and how we affect the bad practices of large companies.
A paradise without beaches or palm trees
One of the first problems we encounter when it comes to talking about tax havens is that it is difficult to define them.
One of its main characteristics is that they are territories in which the companies hardly pay taxes or pay a much lower taxes than those that would pay in other countries where they market their products.
In addition, they are very opaque and have laws that allow neither registered entities nor their owners to identify themselves.
That is why it is an informational bomb every time they reveal the names of investors in tax havens , as has happened recently with the Falciani list.
For example, following the publication of this list Banco Santander had to pay more than 200 million euros to the Treasury.
How does that money end there? Although it seems to lie in most cases in a legal way. There are gaps and legal gaps of which governments are accomplices.
This is what we know as tax avoidance . If it were not legal, then we would talk about tax evasion .
The fact that many are legal practices does not mean that they are responsible or ethical . There is a big difference between contributing fairly to the payment of taxes or trying by all means to pay the minimum taxes.
It would be very difficult to explain in a simple way how big companies manage not to pay the taxes that correspond to them without leaving the legality.
In short, what they do is play with the legal gaps of different countries and create business networks without real activity behind, without workers, without productive facilities. They are companies screen, whose only purpose is to get paid few taxes.
The paradises that most sound to us
Some of the best known tax havens are Delawarein the United States, Ireland, Holland, Luxembourg, Switzerland or the famous Cayman Islands , among many others.
Some of its characteristics among many are, for example:
- Delaware : You have a total tax exemption for companies that do not carry out any activity in the United States.
- Holland : allows the existence of mailbox or post office companies, which often have no employees. They simply register and have a seat. They do not need anything else.
- Luxembourg : does not meet the minimum standards of financial transparency, such as a register of real owners of rents, accounts and companies, or the existence of a mechanism for the exchange of tax information with other countries.
- Cayman Islands : it has mercantile regulations with great flexibility and with tax advantages.
A small note, our country can also be considered a tax haven thanks to the ETVE or Holdings of Foreign Securities.
Designed to attract foreign capital , they allow foreign companies not to pay taxes for the benefits they obtain in our country, to which is added the possibility of receiving aid and tax rebates in Spain for the declared losses.
In short, our country not only does not receive money for the profits of the companies, but ends up paying these when they report supposed losses.
Spain thus loses enormous amounts of resources which, however, do not generate real value, neither in Spain nor in third countries.
And we arrived in our country
Tax fraud costs Spain 59 billion euros each year . This amount exceeds the public budget that was dedicated in 2014 in health.
The Spanish companies of the IBEX 35 , the companies that we consider the largest and most relevant of our country, had 810 companies registered in territories considered tax havens in 2013.
And since the crisis does not affect everyone alike, according to Oxfam Intermon's report "The Fiscal Illusion" , IBEX35 companies have exponentially increased their presence in tax havens during the crisis, especially in Delaware , the Netherlands and Luxembourg .
As we indicated at the outset, tax collection is the state's way of securing money to secure social policies.
However, in Spain, most of what it collects (90%) goes out of the pockets of ordinary citizens, while large companies find a way to not pay what corresponds to them, as we have explained.
And this generates the increase of poverty and inequality.
In fact, we are now the second most unequal country in Europe , behind Latvia.
At this point, we must say that not only are companies responsible for tax evasion and avoidance, governments are also responsible because they have not worried about laws that force large companies to pay their fair share and close loopholes in the international tax system that large corporations exploit.
And what can I do
Several things. You can read the electoral proposals of the political parties now that municipal and regional elections are approaching. All parties without exception make proposals on this subject. Some do so in a very generic way, calling for the fight against corruption, money laundering, evasion / tax evasion / fraud and / or tax haven.
It is important to analyze very well what concrete measures they ask for and how they want to comply with them, so that they are only theories that remain on paper and then are impossible to execute.
This year is key because we have a very tight election calendar .
You can demand political parties and world leaders to hold a World Fiscal Summit this July to begin building a system of fair rules for all countries. Sign the petition .
In addition you can keep informing you about what happens with all that money that escapes from Spain and that in a certain way corresponds to us all as a society.
It is also our money, which should be invested in social policies. We recommend the report ' The fiscal illusion' and consult data on our website.
If you do not feel like reading a report, we invite you to see ' El fiasco del fisco' , an audiovisual form much more enjoyable to understand everything we have explained.
- Below you can see the trailer. And remember: when they do not pay, the rest is expensive.
