Talking tax – it’s anything but boring

Above: L-R Volunteer campaigners Lynsey Burrows, Grace De Bláca and Oxfam's Mary Quinn join activists in Amsterdam to call for action on tax-dodging and inequality.

Last month over 80 activists from Europe and across the world came together for a two day conference in the Netherlands with one shared goal: to change the way tax works. 

Lynsey Burrows from Northern Ireland travelled to Amsterdam along with fellow volunteer campaigner Grace De Bláca and Oxfam Ireland's Campaigns and Public Outreach Executive Mary Quinn. They joined the group working to tackle issues like tax dodging which robs countries of vital funds needed for essential services like health and education.

Lynsey shares her thoughts on the difficulty of communicating such an important but complex issue: 

In March, I was extremely excited to be able to attend the Tax Justice Together conference in Amsterdam with Oxfam Ireland. The tax justice movement is one of the largest social justice movements of the past few years and it is gaining momentum all the time. The conference was an opportunity for activists from all around the world to meet and discuss how best we can continue to work together to campaign for change to the global tax system. 

Within hours of arriving at the conference it became clear that there was one common problem we all faced when campaigning on tax justice in our communities: tax justice sounds boring. Unless you work in the financial industry or are a ‘tax justice nerd’ (the sort who is extremely excited to attend tax justice conferences...) anything to do with tax sounds dreary, dull and complicated. 

Learning about the effects of #taxinjustice in the Global South #taxjusticetogether @OxfamIreland pic.twitter.com/AdLhMGuYDW

— LCB (@_LynseyBurrows) March 15, 2016

And it can be all of those things. Phrases like ‘tax treaties’, ‘capital gains’ and ‘bilateral investments’ are not the most easy to relate to when trying to talk to people about why tax matters. But there was also a very clear and urgent issue that any Oxfam supporter can relate to: 

Tax injustice sustains poverty – as long as there is an unfair tax system, there will be poverty. 

Without any jargon or financial knowledge needed, we can all understand that anything that maintains poverty or makes it worse is something we need to fight against. 

Developing countries are losing billions every year because of tax injustice. Tax injustice has many aspects to it and I am going to focus on just one of those. One of the main culprits is multinational companies avoiding paying tax – tax dodging. They do this through schemes such as tax treaties. Put very simply (because I don’t want to bore you but mainly because I’m not an expert either) tax treaties are an agreement between two countries to avoid paying double tax. 

So, if one multinational company (let’s call them WeLoveMoney) is registered in two countries that have a tax treaty, they will only have to pay tax in one of those counties. WeLoveMoney operates and makes an awful lot of money (which they love, hence the name) in one of those countries, the country that is developed and wealthy. But they are also registered in the developing country, where they don’t make much money but source or create their product. Can you guess which country they choose to pay their taxes in?

So because of perfectly legal loopholes, WeLoveMoney pays a very small amount of tax in the developing country where it is also generating profit and that country's government does not get its fair share of tax - money that is needed to help pay for healthcare, education and essential public services. Without the money they’re rightfully owed, poverty continues. 

The rights and welfare of the some of the poorest people in the world are being harmed by the current global tax system.  So if you hear me and other activists talking about tax, we’re really talking about poverty, about injustice and about inequality. 

And that’s not boring. 

#MakeTaxFair tour with Tax Justice Together: We've got four very special guests coming to Ireland this April - tax campaigners from Malawi, Kenya, Nigeria and Zambia. These activists work tirelessly to change the policies and structures that allow rich individuals and multinational companies to avoid paying the tax they owe. You can meet them in person in Dublin (April 16) and Belfast (April 19).

Why tax matters?

The impact of an unfair tax system should not be measured in numbers and facts – but in its shocking human impact. 

When countries don't receive the money they are owed in tax, people suffer. Children can't go to school, parents work hard but it doesn't pay so their families still go to bed hungry at night, communities living in poverty don't have a say in the decisions that affect them. Inequality grows and poverty is made worse.

Clockwise from left: 1. Munni stands beside an open drain in Horijon Polli, the slum where she lives with her family. 2. Munni at work – despite working hard every day, Munni dreams of work that really pays. 3. Munni cooks breakfast with her two-year old son.  Photos: Adrian Lloyd/Oxfam

Munni Basfur lives with her husband and four children in one room in Horijon Polli, a densely-populated slum in Bangladesh that is home to approximately 6,000 people. Oxfam is working with partners there to improve public health facilities, rebuilding toilets and sanitation systems as well as building new bathing blocks. 

For people like Munni, the effects of inequality are felt on a daily basis. Munni works incredibly hard every day to make ends meet – as a cleaner in a company and then again in a local government office.

And yet still she dreams of job security: “I call my job a “one/two job”. One: today I have it. Two: tomorrow I don’t.”

Help make change happen for people like Munni. Take action today.

Oxfam Ireland's tax justice project is funded by the European Union