Campaigning for a UK Tax Dodging Bill In Northern Ireland Christian Aid has joined other agencies, including Oxfam Ireland and Action Aid, to launch a campaign for a UK Tax Dodging Bill. We are asking political parties to support the introduction of this new legislation that will make it harder for companies to dodge taxes both in the UK and in developing countries. You can support this campaign by contacting your prospective parliamentary candidates in the run up to the general election. Visit taxdodgingbill.org.uk to find out more. 2015 offers many opportunities to speak out on behalf of those who are worst affected by climate change and tax dodging. Please support us as we lobby those in power to put these issues on their agenda.
Tax Dodging Bill campaign launch
For more information about our campaigns work please contact David Thomas on (028) 9064 8133 (NI) or Michael Briggs on (01) 496 7040 (ROI), or email campaignsireland@christian-aid.org.
A tax policy that leads to economic growth, but deepens inequality, needs to be challenged. Irish people have had a strange relationship with paying tax. For a long time, concocting clever ways of not paying taxes was looked upon with admiration. Engaging in financial chicanery was met with nods of admiring approval‘the cute hoor’. Perhaps it’s a legacy of our colonial past, where depriving the colonial overlord of his dues was a small but satisfying act of defiance. But the tragic reality of that legacy of defiance is that going to lengths to avoid and evade taxes due to the state just results in the state having to find the money for public services from other places. Often that can mean fewer public services, or hikes in other kinds of taxes. 14 Christian Aid Ireland
At the Christian Aid conference on tax and human rights last February, the point was made by the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Professor Philip Alston. Fiscal policy, and tax policy he said, are human rights policy – they are what determine states’ ability to ensure that there is enough money in the coffers to provide essential services for its citizens.
When you go to great lengths to avoid tax, you could well just be shooting yourself in the foot. Of course this is felt more acutely in countries of the global south, and Christian Aid’s expertise lies in our association with partners working in the global south. But the message that tax policy is essential for human rights is relevant in an Irish context as well. We have a tax policy in this country that is either famous or infamous depending on who you speak to. It has served us well in terms of inward investment. But for a long time criticism of our tax policy has been seen as almost blasphemy in some quarters. What Christian Aid would like to see happen is that Ireland’s tax policy be subject to regular monitoring and assessment through the lens of our human rights obligations. A tax policy that generates economic growth, but that might contribute to deepening societal inequality is one that needs to be challenged. The Department of Finance’s spillover analysis of its tax policy for any possible negative impact on countries of the global south is very welcome. When one considers that recent CSO figures showed that 130,000 children are living in material deprivation in Ireland, a similar exercise in Ireland would also seem to be timely and very welcome.
Sorley McCaughey is Head of Advocacy and Policy, Christian Aid Ireland