The Bahamas, Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands are among the 17 low-tax districts scrutinized in a new report from the EU Tax Observatory, which found that Europe’s top banks are siphoning an extra €20 billion a year by shifting profits to "tax havens." That accounts for 14% of their total profits, the analysis found.
Despite the growing public debate over tax havens, "European banks have not significantly curtailed their use of tax havens since 2014," the study noted. "These countries exhibit a higher chance of being used by banks as a means of avoiding taxation, rather than having real production activities in the country."
The list brings up a perennial issue regarding tax havens, which is who is doing the identification and for what purpose. "Identifying a tax haven isn’t as simple for the governments intent on controlling them as it is for the taxpayers who seek them out. This is mainly because governments and international organizations tend to think a tax haven is somewhere other than where they live," wrote Beverly Moran in the Conversation earlier this year. "For example, the European Union produces an annual list of tax havens that contains no EU member countries, even though many other lists identify Ireland, Luxembourg and a host of other European countries as tax havens."
Indeed, crackdowns by highly developed countries against "tax havens" have unfairly targeted smaller Caribbean countries while turning a blind eye to countries in the Global north that have similar fiscal structures. A proposed global minimum tax would impact a region already hit by the pandemic economic downturn, writes Bruce Zagaris in Global Americans.
(See Jan. 28's Just Caribbean Updates for more on the issue.)
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Guyana rejects Venezuela "accord" on Essequibo
Representatives of Venezuela's government and opposition reached partial agreements in Mexico City negotiations this week. The partial accords include the country's approach to the coronavirus pandemic and Venezuela's stance on a disputed border area controlled by Guyana.
The two sides also agreed Venezuela has a "historic and inalienable" claim to Guyana's Essequibo region, the focus of a century-old dispute, reports AFP. They share the idea of "reconquering" the 159,000 km area of Guyana, reports El País. Venezuelan prosecutors have previously accused Guaido of treason for allegedly plotting to hand over Essequibo to multinational companies.
Guyana officials and opposition politicians objected strenuously to the terms of accord. “That agreement is an overt threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Guyana,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said in a statement. “Guyana cannot be used as an altar of sacrifice for settlement of Venezuela’s internal political differences. While the government of Guyana welcomes domestic accord within Venezuela, an agreement defying international law and process is not a basis for mediating harmony,” the statement added.
The Guyana-Venezuela dispute is before the International Court of Justice.
(CMC, Kaieteur News)
Democratic Governance
- What does “semiautonomous” mean for Puerto Rico's governance? The question has increasingly vexed Puerto Rico’s residents, the federal government, and the Supreme Court, reports the New Republic. Now a potential case before the justices has reframed the question in unusual terms: whether Congress can ban cockfighting within Puerto Rico.
Climate Justice and Energy
- Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley criticized wealthy nations' failure to live up to their climate commitments, and called for debt restructuring or cancellation to give fiscal space for climate adaptation for small island developing states. Speaking at the Argentina-hosted High-Level Dialogue on Climate Action this week, she also called for the adoption of a multidimensional vulnerability index so that middle income countries can access concessional finance.
- Vaccine inequity, unaffordable accommodation, travel challenges and new surges in the Covid19 pandemic will lock out huge numbers of developing country delegates from the UN climate talks set to take place in November, warns the Climate Action Network. An in-person COP in early November would de facto exclude many government delegates, civil society campaigners and journalists, particularly from Global South countries, many of which are on the UK’s Covid19 ‘red list’. This week the U.K. government said it had offered to cover the hotel quarantine costs of delegates from red list countries. (Guardian)
- Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico released its "Third Report Towards a Just Recovery" which addresses the intersection of housing justice, land justice and climate justice in the wake of Hurricane Maria.
- The Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Research Centre at the University of Bahamas launched a new website looking to generate learning from the experiences of people in Hurricane Dorian in 2017. It contains a short documentary on Hurricane Dorian and climate change, broad results of our national survey on disaster risk management, collected stories of Dorian that highlight climate justice issues, and other resources.
- Remote Black communities with their own distinct identities, language, and culture have been under relentless siege by the threat of commercial development -- the case of Barbuda, where the Antigua government is challenging the island's 200-year tradition of communal landholding, is yet another example, writes Mikki Harris in National Geographic. "Barbuda is not just land. It is a Black diasporic identity. It is 1,500 lives that represent a freedom tradition, a legacy worth fighting for and preserving."
- Colombia's Constitutional Court is evaluating a guardianship request presented by 90 Raizal families from the Caribbean island of Providencia, who seek the protection of their rights after the impact they suffered from Hurricane Iota in November 2020. (El Tiempo)
- Jamaica's attitude towards mangroves seems schizophrenic, writes Emma Lewis at Petchary's Blog. "On the one hand, the relevant Government agencies go out of their way to celebrate mangroves and to teach schoolchildren about their importance. On the other hand, the mangroves are destroyed – primarily in the name of tourism and highways – and then, at some point, replanted."
Public Security
- Haiti’s government promised to fight criminal organizations, and warned about a spike in kidnappings and other crimes. But two gang leaders retorted that any crackdown will bring greater violence aimed at police in the already unstable country, reports the Associated Press.
- Haiti's recent earthquake has created a whole new generation of orphans, who are vulnerable to street gangs and sexual violence. Complicating the response for vulnerable children is the damage sustained by so many of the region’s schools, reports the Guardian.
Economics and Finance
- Remittances to Latin American and Caribbean countries declined less than originally predicted during the Covid-19 pandemic because many migrants are in essential jobs and industries benefiting from U.S. income-protection measures, writes Gabriel Cabañas at the AULA blog.
- Jamaica is undertaking a major assessment of its food systems ahead of the global U.N. Food Systems Summit. (Petchary's Blog)
- Weather events -- such as massive floods this year -- are affecting Guyana's food production, and, together with Covid-19 increased food costs, can push parts of the country's population into food insecurity. (Guyanese Online)
Women
- The sex work industry in Latin America and the Caribbean was affected tremendously by Covid-19, particularly migrant workers, writes Shanna- Kay Gillespie at Feminitt. "For the Caribbean feminism movement to make strides, sexual minority works, and inclusion needs to be at the forefront."
Histories
- A 19th century "Golden Carriage" built for the Dutch royal family, which depicts glorified scenes of slavery and colonial opression, is a source of conflict in The Netherlands. (New York Times)
- "The critical thing for Latin America and especially for the Caribbean is that these are parts of the world in which the vast majority of the preconquest population was either exterminated or displaced or marginalised," historian Richard Drayton Kings College London Decolonising History Project. "Essentially decolonisation in the Caribbean and Latin America is very much linked to an assertion of the hybridity, of the mixed, metisse, mestizo character of people of the Caribbean and Latin America."
Culture
- “Dust Specks on the Sea: Contemporary Sculpture from the French Caribbean & Haiti,” approaches to the subject matter, materials and processes that address contemporary practices by various artists of the Caribbean region. This helps create a globalized space encompassing an art world that puts pressure on who is at its “center” and who is on its “periphery," reports ABQ News.
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