José Antonio OcampoThe last two years have thrown into sharp relief the structural injustices that underpin the global economy. The COVID-19 pandemic drove an estimated 88-115 million people into extreme poverty. In the meantime, the world’s billionaires saw their wealth increase by more than 25Pct in this period of pandemic. And while countries in the Global North are now administering vaccine boosters, those in the Global South continue to struggle to secure even first doses for their populations.
Over the past few years, leaks of documents such as the “Panama Papers” and the “Paradise Papers” have exposed the dark underbelly of globalization, and provoked indignant denunciations of tax avoidance from people around the world. Ordinary workers have no choice but to pay their taxes. But, apparently, multinational corporations and wealthy individuals can get away with paying hardly anything.
The World Bank Group has just released Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All, the latest version of its flagship report. According to the Bank, the annual report is one of the world’s most influential policy publications, as it encourages countries to reduce the regulatory burden on the private sector. But there is a serious flaw in the report’s formula: the way it treats corporate taxation.
