Excellent, plain-language explainer on corporate and 1 percenter tax evasion, with a simple solution

a post by Cory Doctorow for the Boing Boing blog

The New York Times has collaborated with Berkeley economics prof Gabriel Zucman to produce an interactive explainer that walks through the baroque tax-evasion strategies deployed by multinationals like Google and Apple, as well as the super-rich, using plain language and explanatory graphics to get past the deliberately eye-glazing tedium of these arrangements, a shield of boringness that has allowed the super-rich to hide $8.7 trillion from tax authorities while taking advantage of national courts, education, roads, police, and health care.

This system of representation without taxation gives the wealthy the best of all worlds: tiny and giant countries alike scramble for crumbs from the ever-more-rich 1 percent, tilting policies in their favor.

Go straight to

How Corporations and the Wealthy Avoid Taxes (and How to Stop Them) [Gabriel Zucman/New York Times]
The amounts involved are mind-blowing but the interactive chart explains very clearly how companies can avoid paying tax. Evasion is something else.

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