"International taxation rules allow Apple, Starbucks, and Nike to avoid billions of dollars of taxes. News stories have focused on tax dodging in developed countries, but developing countries lose at least $200 billion per year in tax revenue. In the Global South, an international tax regime designed by the states of multi-national corporations limits the local ability to raise sorely needed tax revenue from foreign investors. How did developing countries give up their right to tax foreign companies? Martin Hearson charts their assimilation into an OECD-led regime from independence through to the present day."--
In Imposing Standards, Martin Hearson shifts the focus of political rhetoric regarding international tax rules from tax havens and the Global North to the damaging impact of this regime on the Global South. Even when not exploited by tax dodgers, international tax standards place severe limits on the ability of developing countries to tax businesses, denying the Global South access to much-needed revenue. The international rules that allow tax avoidance by multinational corporations have dominated political debate about international tax in the United States and Europe, especially since the global financial crisis of 20072008.
Hearson asks how developing countries willingly gave up their right to tax foreign companies, charting their assimilation into an OECD-led regime from the days of early independence to the present day. Based on interviews with treaty negotiators, policymakers and lobbyists, as well as observation at intergovernmental meetings, archival research, and fieldwork in Africa and Asia, Imposing Standards shows that capacity constraints and imperfect negotiation strategies in developing countries were exploited by capital-exporting states, shielding multinationals from taxation and depriving nations in the Global South of revenue they both need and deserve.
Thanks to generous funding from the Gates Foundation, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellopen.org) and other repositories.
