Zitto Kabwe on inequality and taxes
Too often, multinational corporations take advantage of public services without contributing their fair share, instead shifting their profits to tax havens. Zitto Kabwe, a member of parliament in Tanzania, says that if we’re serious about creating a society where people play by the same set of rules, we need to establish an international tax convention that would curtail tax havens.
Transcript
ZITTO KABWE: Inequality is, take one. Thirty percent of African financial wealth is held in tax havens. That is inequality.
[Inequality is logo. A graphic black equal sign with an orange slash through it. #InequalityIs. Zitto Kabwe, member of parliament, Tanzania. An African man with short black hair, wearing a light blue collared shirt under a striped dark blue sweater.]
Inequality is when multinational corporations pay less taxes or no tax at all in countries where they operate and shift their profits to tax havens, while enjoying services like roads, services like defense and security, for their investments. African governments fail to deliver social services to their people. Services like education, health, water services, because the money that they’re supposed to have, in order to provide these services, are hiding in tax havens. That’s why it is very, very important for the world to establish an international tax convention, in order to ensure that everybody is subjected to the same set of rules. Including establishment of centrally managed Registrar of Companies, and assets like stocks, in various stock markets of the world, so that there will be an automatic exchange of information between countries on tax matters. If we want to create a society of equals, where human beings live in the same set of rules, we must address the issue of tax habits.
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