Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Moving Money: International Financial Flows, Taxes, Money Laundering & Transparency, Richard Gordon, Andrew P. Morriss

Andrew P Morriss

Recent publicity over enormous estimates of “missing” wealth and the use of sophisticated tax strategies by companies like Apple, Google, and Starbucks have produced a demand that the wealthy pay a “fair” amount of tax regardless of their compliance with the letter of tax laws. In particular, the Tax Justice Network’s claim that $21-$32 trillion of “hidden” wealth remains untaxed has garnered considerable attention. In this paper we argue that these claims rest on poor data and analysis and mistakes about how financial transactions work. We further argue that the disputes are about fundamentally conflicting visions of how financial transactions …