Tax and Inequality

For the Global #FightInequality week (14-20 January 2017), TJN-A and Oxfam produced a great short factsheet on Tax and Inequality. This provides an introduction to the subject and links to recent publications that you may have missed.

Along with climate change the inequality/corruption complex provides one of the greatest challenges to our societies.  We know that the most corruption societies in the world are also amongst the most highly unequal.  Similarly, the Nordic countries with the lowest levels of inequality are, not surprisingly, the least corrupt countries in the world.

Tax systems play a key role in redistributing wealth. But for this to be achieved, progressive taxation, largely destroyed over the neoliberal generation, needs to be rebuilt. This factsheet explains the basic terms involved and indicates what needs to be done to ensure that taxation achieves its twin aims of providing government income and reducing inequality.

As the factsheet explains about VAT, the favourite tax of recent decades, “studies have shown if not well applied can further exacerbate income inequality”, to put it mildly.

The factsheet also provides a good introduction and definition of the key terms used in this topic.  

The full factsheet is available for free download from:

https://kenya.oxfam.org/sites/kenya.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/Tax%20and%20Inequality%20factsheet.pdf

For more detail on inequality, Oxfam have produced another briefing document in their Even It Up series, An Economy for the 99%: It’s time to build a human economy that benefits everyone, not just the privileged few.

New estimates show that just eight men own the same wealth as the poorest half of the world. As growth benefits the richest, the rest of society – especially the poorest – suffers. The very design of our economies and the principles of our economics have taken us to this extreme, unsustainable and unjust point. Our economy must stop excessively rewarding those at the top and start working for all people. Accountable and visionary governments, businesses that work in the interests of workers and producers, a valued environment, women’s rights and a strong system of fair taxation, are central to this more human economy.

http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/an-economy-for-the-99-its-time-to-build-a-human-economy-that-benefits-everyone-620170