Taxation and leaks like Paradise Papers ... an endless story

re:publica 18 - Politics & Society

Taxation, again the most boring talk at #rp18, but hey it's the economy stupid, and you pay for it! This didn't change since last year. We will a provide a quick overview of what happened in the last year concerning the international taxation system and how it affects society.

• Daniela Platsch
• Walter Palmetshofer

This talk is an update on what happened in the last year in the international taxation sphere. We will also provide a quick overview of the international taxation system. The topics of our talk will be:

- Paradise Papers: After the famous #LuxLeaks and #PanamaPapers, the Paradise Papers were published in November 2017. A set of 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments 19 tax jurisdictions. We will provide a summary, show the biggest cases, and demonstrate how this is a structural problem.

- How many billions our favourite tech companies (Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft,...) evaded in taxes

- The European Commission and parliament's positions on the European “tax heaven issues.”

- Structural issues and why this an endless story

We will explain what a Double Irish Sandwich is and why international corporations like Google only pay 2.4% taxes. And how your favourite tech companies (Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft,...) evaded billions in taxes. This tax-dodging costs the European Union more than $50 billion. Annually. We bring this number into perspective. And why you pay more.

And why this boring issue is one of the biggest questions of our time.

Won't be boring.