Tax Havens: What Can be Done? Evidence from a century of history

Tax evasion is as old as taxes. But with the introduction of mass income taxes at the beginning of the twentieth century, the problem took on new dimensions. After 1918, the first tax haven countries appeared initially in continental Europe. After the Second World War, a new generation of havens opened up in the dissolving British Empire in places such as the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Singapore, and, for Australia, the New Hebrides and other Pacific territories. This talk will looks at the role of governments in setting up countries as tax havens after 1945. Most tax havens were state-sponsored projects, making current calls for shutting down havens and curbing avoidance appear problematic. What, then, can be done against tax havens especially in the face of mounting inequality today? ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Vanessa Ogle is the Julie and Martin Franklin Assistant Professor in the Department of History University of Pennsylvania, Her first book, The Global Transformation of Time: 1870 - 1950, was published in 2015.. She is now writing a book on the history of tax havens, offshore money markets, and free trade zones, 1920s-1980s. Vanessa is the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Visiting Fellow in the Laureate Research Program in International History, at the University of Sydney. More event information http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/vanessa_ogle.shtml