Richard Eccleston, The Dynamics of Global Economic Governance: The Financial Crisis, the OECD and the Politics of International Tax Cooperation (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2012).
The breadth of global tax evasion has made public headlines and brought attention to the initiatives of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), alongside the G20 and other international bodies. As Richard Eccleston reports, “the sheer magnitude of the threat that international tax evasion poses, denying governments approximately $250 billion per year – more than 15 times the sum spent on humanitarian aid globally in 2011 – ensures that the issue is gaining prominence on the international political agenda.” (P. 33) When taxpayers evade their obligations, the world suffers. How could anyone not be gripped?
The Dynamics of Global Economic Governance: The Financial Crisis, the OECD and the Politics of International Tax Cooperation is a welcome addition to the literature on the regulatory responses to international tax evasion, authored in the light of the global financial crisis. Richard Eccleston, a political scientist in Tasmania, shifts the typical legal scholar’s lens from the legal frameworks that facilitate tax evasion to a careful and insightful exploration or the role of political actors in facilitating tax cooperation in response to that evasion. The work is supported by interviews with more than 40 national tax officials, business and NGO representatives, OECD and UN staff. Continue reading "After the Financial Crisis"
