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The Hidden Wealth of Nations
Gabriel Zucman
The Scourge of Tax Havens
University Of Chicago Press
October 2015
On Sale: September 22, 2015
200 pages
ISBN: 022624542X
EAN: 9780226245423
Kindle: B014F6X8LW
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
We are well aware of the rise of the 1% as the rapid growth
of economic inequality has put the majority of the world’s
wealth in the pockets of fewer and fewer. One much-discussed
solution to this imbalance is to significantly increase the
rate at which we tax the wealthy. But with an enormous
amount of the world’s wealth hidden in tax havens—in
countries like Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Cayman
Islands—this wealth cannot be fully accounted for and taxed
fairly. No one, from economists to bankers to politicians,
has been able to quantify exactly how much of the world’s
assets are currently hidden—until now. Gabriel Zucman is the
first economist to offer reliable insight into the actual
extent of the world’s money held in tax havens. And it’s
staggering.
In The Hidden Wealth of Nations,
Zucman offers an inventive and sophisticated approach to
quantifying how big the problem is, how tax havens work and
are organized, and how we can begin to approach a solution.
His research reveals that tax havens are a quickly growing
danger to the world economy. In the past five years, the
amount of wealth in tax havens has increased over 25%—there
has never been as much money held offshore as there is
today. This hidden wealth accounts for at least $7.6
trillion, equivalent to 8% of the global financial assets of
households. Fighting the notion that any attempts to
vanquish tax havens are futile, since some countries will
always offer more advantageous tax rates than others, as
well the counter-argument that since the financial crisis
tax havens have disappeared, Zucman shows how both sides are
actually very wrong. In The Hidden Wealth of Nations
he offers an ambitious agenda for reform, focused on ways in
which countries can change the incentives of tax havens.
Only by first understanding the enormity of the secret
wealth can we begin to estimate the kind of actions that
would force tax havens to give up their practices.
Zucman’s work has quickly become the gold standard for
quantifying the amount of the world’s assets held in havens.
In this concise book, he lays out in approachable language
how the international banking system works and the dangerous
extent to which the large-scale evasion of taxes is
undermining the global market as a whole. If we are to find
a way to solve the problem of increasing inequality, The
Hidden Wealth of Nations is essential reading.
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