Tax Justice is a critical issue, not only now that governments need mor revenue due to economic turmoil, but always has been. The problem with tax collection is that it is very unfair, at least in developped countries like mine (Spain). The tax collection strategy of our government has been to collect taxes from those that have no possibilities of tax evasion, not from those that have more money; this is very pragmatic but totally unfair and unethical becaise it pursues an ethical end through unethical means. In our country (Spain) salaried people are paying the taxes because tax is directly reduced from salaries and because salaries are totally under control by the Tributary Agency. Normal salaried people have no means of tax evasion while rich people have battallions of lawyers and experts that makes it very difficult for the Agency to fight; so the strategy right now is to squeeze even more de lemon of normal people instead of trying to obtain the right taxes fron rich people; totally unfair.
One of the issues that you mention is tax evasion through fiscal paradises like some islands of the Caribbean, of the Channel, Gibraltar, or countries that practice banking as its basic source of income , like Switzerland, Luxembourg and others; I totally agree with Germany or France, countries that are trying to fight against this illegal and unfair practices of massive tax evasion and I would like my country to do the same thing; there are massive amounts of money that are diverted to fiscal paradises throughout the world while small decent people are being harrassed by the Agency for a few euros; we need time to work and develop our small businesses, not to go hours and hours to the fiscal offices to justify our small income and tax declarations; it is outrageous that in the meantime the economically powerfull are totally unscathed simply because they have economic and legal deffenses.
¡Taxes are basic, and taxes are basically unfair! The problem is that in the face of this situation governments like ours react with more unfairness instead of more fairness; once more politicians are dead wrong and dead unethical.
Fernando Chávarri
Politechnical University of Madrid (Spain)
