Thirty countries crack down on tax evaders
Paris meeting hopes to pile pressure on tax avoiders, but OECD report shows wealthy are paying their share
A global crackdown on tax evasion by wealthy individuals has been launched in
30 countries, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.
Tax officials promised greater scrutiny of individuals who used arrangements
to hide money offshore at a meeting in Paris.
Governments are cracking down on perceived tax avoidance by wealthy
individuals, in part due to a public perception that rich people should come
under the greatest scrutiny by authorities because they pay the least tax.
But an OECD report on compliance by wealthy individuals partially rebuffed
this assumption. It cited data showing the richest 0.5 per cent of taxpayers in
the UK pay 17 per cent of income tax.
The relative tax burden of wealthy citizens was even higher in the US, where
the top one per cent pay about 40 per cent of federal income tax.