Tag Archives: Taxes

Everyone knows that corporations dodge taxes. If a regulation loop hole exists, they are likely to try and exploit it, inventing a new practice, tool or mechanism for the purpose, with a new, jargon-laden name that gives it an air of legitimacy. Whereas much past evasion of taxes would happen in the corporation’s own country, with the rapid globalization of businesses over the last few decades it now spreads across nations and continents. For example, a huge relatively new field of transfer pricing has mushroomed within the financial accounting realm, with whole teams, even departments, charged with it. What does it mean? In the most basic terms, a parent company sells or trades to its own subsidiary in a different country some goods, services or labor, often at an obscenely low or high price, in order to move income or expenditure of their balance sheet around to make them fit into lower tax brackets and less regulated jurisdictions. In essence, it transfers the price somewhere else that reduces its tax liability, hence the name transfer pricing. All of this is done “for tax purposes,” with tax professionals involved engaging in what they call “tax planning,” evidenced by the fact that transfer pricing is often and increasingly an offshoot of tax departments in companies and accounting firms. Translated, it means legal tax dodging. Read this useful summary by the Tax Justice Network for a closer look.

This is of course but just one example and understanding what fully occurs behind closed doors can be clouded by the terminology. Today, Development Roast brings you an infographic published by The Online MBA that attempts to explain exactly How Corporations Get Out of Paying Taxes in more visual terms. Read More »

There are some policies that are obviously correct from both environmental and economic viewpoints, but which are nevertheless difficult to implement. The elimination of fossil fuel subsidies is such an example. This year, the Bolivian government expects to spend at least US$750 million on direct subsidies to diesel (62%), gasoline (27%) and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) (10%) use (1). Apart from dramatically reducing funds available for public investment, these subsidies also encourage contamination, congestion and deforestation (2), all of which mean substantially higher social costs than the direct costs of the subsidy itself. The beneficiaries of the subsidy are dominated by the agro-industry in Santa Cruz, which profits greatly from the combination of cheap diesel and cheap land. Thus, the subsidy is by no means pro-poor, and a lot of the benefits are even lost to neighboring countries, as their nationals rent cheap land and use subsidized fuel for growing crops in Bolivia. For example, more than 70% of the area dedicated to soy production over the last decade is in the hands of foreigners (3). The Bolivian government realizes all this and has tried, unsuccessfully, to eliminate the fuel subsidy.

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