Ekonomisti se že desetletja ukvarjajo s svojevrstno uganko: če vzamemo bilanco sveta, so celotne svetovne obveznosti večje od sredstev, kar pomeni, da svet kot celota izkazuje neto dolg. Ta misterij izgubljenega bogastva so ekonomisti že nekaj časa pripisovali denarju, spravljenem v davčnih oazah, vendar pa za to niso imeli dokazov. Nedavno pa je Gabriel Zucman, 27-letni francoski ekonomist iz London School of Economics, sicer protégé bolj znanega kolega Thomasa Pikettyja, prek poročil centralnih bank Švice in Luksemburga ter z ekstrapolacijo teh podatkov izračunal, da naj bi vrednost “izgubljenega zaklada”, skritega v davčnih oazah, po konzervativni oceni znašala 7,600 milijard $ oziroma 8% finančnih sredstev v zasebnih rokah.

Mr. Zucman estimates — conservatively, in his view — that $7.6 trillion — 8 percent of the world’s personal financial wealth — is stashed in tax havens. If all of this illegally hidden money were properly recorded and taxed, global tax revenues would grow by more than $200 billion a year, he believes. And these numbers do not include much larger corporate tax avoidance, which usually follows the letter but hardly the spirit of the law. According to Mr. Zucman’s calculations, 20 percent of all corporate profits in the United States are shifted offshore, and tax avoidance deprives the government of a third of corporate tax revenues. Corporate tax avoidance has become so widespread that from the late 1980s until now, the effective corporate tax rate in the United States has dropped from 30 percent to 15 percent, Mr. Zucman found, even though the tax rate hasn’t changed.

…

Only multinational corporations and people with at least $50 million in financial assets usually have the resources to engage in offshore tax evasion. Since the less wealthy continue paying taxes, the practice deepens wealth inequality. Indeed, newly invigorated efforts in the United States to curb personal tax evasion, codified in the 2010 Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, have armed the Internal Revenue Service with strong sanctions to levy on foreign banks that fail to disclose accounts held by American residents. This has made it “more difficult for moderately wealthy individuals to dodge taxes,” Mr. Zucman says, while the richest account holders still have more elaborate evasive techniques at their disposal.

Zucman pravi, da se je trend davčne evazije močno razširil v začetku 1980. let, v času Reaganove administracije, in to kljub zniževanju davkov na osebne prejemke in dividende iz kapitalskih naložb. Zmanjšala se je morala plačevanja davkov, saj se je predstava države v očeh bogatejših nenadoma spremenila v požrešno zver, skrivanje bogastva in prihodkov pa legitimno početje.

Ključen problem pri obdavčenju skritega premoženja je, da o tem ne obstajajo podatki. Če ni podatkov o premoženju, ga tudi obdavčiti ni mogoče. Zucman zato predlaga ustanovitev globalnega finančnega registra, ki bi omogočil, da bodo države lahko ugotovile obseg in dinamiko premoženja, ki ga imajo njihovi državljani po svetu.

Despite the obstacles that the tax compliance act faces, Mr. Zucman believes its passage marked a global turning point, starting an era of “remarkable progress” in reducing bank secrecy. Even so, only an international approach has a chance of stopping tax evasion, he says. Its most important feature would be a global financial registry, which would track wealth ownership in the same way that Americans routinely record real estate holdings now. “If you can’t measure wealth,” Mr. Zucman says, “it’s almost impossible to tax it.”

A registry would make it impossible for multinationals to falsely attribute profits to tax havens instead of the countries where the profits should be taxed. The United States and Europe could build momentum for a global registry by establishing national registries for their own residents, perhaps incorporating the idea into the free trade agreement that Europe and the United States are now negotiating.

Vir navedb: New York Times