Canadian historian Quinn Slobodian shows how systematic work is being done to break the world into tax havens. Also in Germany.
There has been an often irritatingly cold-hearted and surprisingly short-sighted debate in recent months about what we should do not want to achieve as a society and what the state should spend less money on: poorer people, environmental protection, refugees, ecologically sustainable production of heat. There have been fewer political discussions recently about prosperity seeking its own worlds. In other words: at the end of 2022, Germans parked around $377 billion in tax havens in the EU, Switzerland, the USA or Asia. Nine out of ten corporations that operate worldwide have subsidiaries in these countries. According to calculations, the German state is missing out on around 26 percent of profit tax. More than any other country. In addition, the tax burden on German billionaires is a maximum of 0.5 percent. Most people pay even less because they have long been looking for their own worlds.