WANTED! For dodging tax justice
Cut, cut, cut! ‘Read my lips – no more taxes!’ For the better part of a generation, political mantras about tax have been deliberately misleading. ‘Small’ government and ‘lower’ taxes have not cut the tax bill or government budgets. A tax ‘consensus’ has been quietly engineered by the IMF and imposed worldwide, regardless of democratic preference or absolute human needs. As globalization goes mental and public funds prop up the world’s banks, this month New Internationalist uncovers the global tax scandal - and suggests where justice might lie.
October 2008, Issue 416
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Desmond Tutu
Tax justice and the global fiddle
David Ransom listens to the false notes being played by an orchestra of financial instruments. Top dodgers: Bono, Rupert Murdoch.
Can pay... won't pay!
How John Christensen made a banker hide his head in his hands in the tax haven of Jersey. Top dodgers: Leoa Helmsley, The Prince of Liechtenstein.
Tax injustice – THE FACTS
The measure of just tax is the ability to pay. The world’s tax system today is unjust, shifting the burden from rich to poor – and failing altogether to address the green agenda.
Tax the richest – why are we waiting
As the UN goes in search of more funds to eliminate poverty, David Hillman reckons he knows where they're hiding. Top dodger: Tesco.
Why ecotaxes may not be the answer
Tax will, sooner or later, have to follow the environmental agenda. Nicola Liebert reports on mixed experiences so far, even in Germany. Top dodger: The British Monarchy.
Rebels with a cause
Where there's a tax there's a revolt.
Queer India...
... is coming out to play. Nick Harvey sets the scene – and then takes an in-depth look at the problems faced by Indian lesbians.
The Fire Inside
In the wake of a groundbreaking film, lesbians in India are asserting themselves more – and seeing some encouraging signs of change, as Nick Harvey reports.
Big Bad World cartoon
Polyp discovers oil in the Garden of Eden.
Making Waves
Martha Lucia Micher Camarena has been battling to defend women's rights in Mexico for decades – and last year she achieved two landmark victories.
Worldbeater: Gazprom
Russia's massive energy company plans to be the biggest corporation in the world by 2014 – and who would bet against it?
Only Planet cartoon
Marc Roberts’ intergalactic health & safety inspectors Gort and Klaatu make their début.
Seriously... Bang your head
A US defence contractor is claiming to have developed a technology that allows sounds to be beamed directly into people’s heads.
Letter from Cairo: living theatre
Tempers flare between the occupants of Maria Golia building – but smoke doesn't necessarily mean fire.
Linha de Passe
An outstanding realistic drama that shows these people’s ordinariness, strengths and weaknesses, and never idealizes or diminishes them.
Alexandra
What war does to people’s humanity and how, without trust, touch and intimacy, we’re lost.
Big Blue Ball
Peter Gabriel threw open the doors of his Real World studios in rural England and invited an enormous bunch of musicians – Sinead O’Connor, Marta Sebestyen, Papa Wemba, Guo Yue are just a few of them – to come and jam.
The Rebel's Hour
Lieve Joris’s spellbinding account of the recent ill-starred history of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
From A to X: A Story in Letters
A heartrending love-story and a searing indictment of authoritarianism in all its forms.
Hear, O'Israel: A Prayer Ceremony in Jazz
17-year-old rabbi’s son – and fledgling composer – Joseph Klein lured one of the greatest names in jazz (Herbie Hancock) to join in performing a jazz prayer ceremony.
The Riddle Oaf
The Riddle of Qaf is crammed with allusions to classical literature and cod-scientific theories and it makes free (and unapologetic) use of myths and legends.
Breathing again
Aboriginal sea rights a landmark victory.
Princess and President
Despite the country being hit by Typhoon Fengshen, Filipino President Arroyo arranged a 10-day trip to the US for herself and at least 59 of her loyal congress members, at a reported cost of 66 million pesos ($1.42 million)!
In tents activity
Campaigners take to the canvas to show solidarity.
Funding cuts threaten lives in Kenya
Human skulls and decomposing bodies dug up in Kenya’s Rift Valley Province show signs of torture.
Pull down St.Paul's
British aid agency ActionAid recently put in an application to demolish London’s famed St Paul’s Cathedral.
Their guns will not conquer
The Karen fight ethnic cleansing in Burma with economic development.
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