Global Jim Crow: International Taxation and Racial Capitalism<\/em>. In his book, Professor Dean considers the impact of African decolonization on the global tax regime\u2014a regime that was developed, and continues to evolve, as a tool for economic subjugation.<\/p>\nHis story starts with balloons. Professor Dean was a year-old infant, and King Charles III was still just the Prince of Wales. At a party celebrating Bahamian independence, Prince Charles questioned Professor Dean\u2019s mother about the couple of flyaway balloons she had collected. A question, perhaps, or maybe an allegory for fear\u2014a sentiment that underlies the development of international taxation through the latter half of the twentieth century. The empire was breaking up and floating away.<\/p>\n
Professor Dean is clear: The fear of a Black planet, in the wave of decolonization that followed in the period after World War II, was also a fear of taxation. Not just tax generally, but a tax imposed by poor countries onto the rich\u2014and, specifically, by Black countries onto white ones. Whether it was John Maynard Keynes expressly objecting to the inclusion of countries like Liberia and Ethiopia at Bretton Woods (the conference that birthed the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) or even the Dunning school of thought (which, in post-Civil War America, advocated against a multiracial democracy), anti-Blackness has driven policy decisions for years.<\/p>\n
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), developed post-World War II, is a group of now-38 countries that collaborate on economic policy standards. Tax treaties among the OECD\u2019s members proliferated quickly to avoid issues of double taxation. By the end of the century, 475 treaties were signed (out of a possible 552), making it possible for creative tax avoidance schemes (see: the \u201cdouble Irish with a Dutch sandwich\u201d technique, allowing certain large multinational corporations to avoid paying any taxes whatsoever).<\/p>\n
Today, the idea of a \u201cglobal minimum\u00a0tax\u201d has been introduced, meant to help rich countries collect revenues from multinational corporations otherwise outside of their reach. The corporation would still benefit from operating in an effectively lower tax regime, and the wealthy country would receive some of its lost revenue as a tax. The losers? Poor countries, neither gaining additional tax revenue nor fixing the issues of tax collection enforcement.<\/p>\n
In the fall of 2023, the Africa Group successfully lobbied the United Nations General Assembly to vote overwhelmingly for a return to the pre-tax treaty era, away from the OECD-led endeavor into a \u201ctwo pillar\u201d global tax. Those pillars, mostly, protected American tech giants from global taxation by restraining countries like Kenya and Nigeria from being able to impose taxes on digital services. This vote would have the United Nations take a greater role in international tax matters, threatening the OECD, whose membership has never included an African or majority-Black country.<\/p>\n
While greed is certainly part of the story, Professor Dean emphasizes the United States\u2019 push to shift global tax policy from the hands of the United Nations to the newly formed OECD is due to real antipathy to multiracial democracy. The real story, he says, is about a global fear that poor Black countries are taking away the wealthy white countries\u2019 balloons.<\/p>\n
Steven Dean is a Professor of Law and Paul Siskind Research Scholar at Boston University School of Law. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the National Tax Association and the American Tax Policy Institute. Dean has previously served as Vice Dean at Brooklyn Law School and Faculty Director of NYU Law School\u2019s Graduate Tax Program. Prior to entering academia, Dean practiced tax law at Debevoise & Plimpton and Cravath, Swaine & Moore. <\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nTithi Patel (LAW \u201925) is a Student Editor for the <\/em>Temple 10-Q. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May 1, 2024
\nProfessor Steven Dean of BU Law discusses the evolution of international taxation regimes as a tool of racial capitalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":3887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17,9],"tags":[2810,2811,889,323],"coauthors":[2809],"class_list":["post-3886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law-school-and-legal-education","category-student-authored","category-tax","tag-africa","tag-decolonization","tag-international-law","tag-tax","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"yoast_head":"\n
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