Over the past generation, tax avoidance and evasion have gone from an annoyance to a major societal catastrophe: Annette Alstadsæter, Niels Johannesen, and Gabriel Zucman: Tax Evasion and Inequality: "Why do the rich evade so much? The straightforward answer is because they can. There is a whole industry – in Switzerland, Panama and other tax havens around the globe – that provides wealth concealment services to the world’s wealthiest individuals. This industry typically only targets the very wealthy (people with more than $20 million or sometimes $50 million to invest), since serving too many would-be evaders would increase the risk of these banks and law firms being found in violation of the law. Moderately wealthy individuals (those below the top 0.1%) do not have access to the services they sell and therefore don’t evade much tax. Further down the ladder, the majority of the population only earns wages and pension income, which cannot be hidden from the tax authority...
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