EU Tax Observatory

How does inheritance tax avoidance work through the family firm? 🤔

Join @isabelmico.bsky.social (Economist at the @Bank of Spain) for our next #LunchSeminar to explore this question.

🗓️ October 10, 2025 | 12pm (CET)
📍 @pse.bsky.social & online

🔗 Registration: lnkd.in/dkpC68XU

From trade wars to @un.org talks, global tax cooperation is at stake.
Oct 2, Paris, #ICRICT Commissioners, policymakers & civil society debate how to build a fairer international tax system amid great-power rivalry.
⏰6–8PM
📍Paris School of Economics
Inscriptions: shorturl.at/I6Kvp
#TaxThePower

6/6 Key lessons for Europe 🇪🇺:

✅ Mandatory due diligence can influence firm behavior.
⚠️ Legal havens pose enforcement challenges.
💡 Costs are manageable, and the transparency benefits are long-term.

5/6 🔍Transparency gains?

From firms' reports, more than 1,000 smelters across the world are mapped, while we knew only a few hundred of them before.

4/6 💰Costs?

Initial compliance expenses were significant, but manageable and risk-dependent, averaging €30,000–€70,000 per year once traceability systems were in place.

3/6 ⚠️ But avoidance exists: about 24% of this decrease is caused by diversion of trade to legal havens.

These jurisdictions make it harder to track origins, creating loopholes that can weaken enforcement.

2/6 In 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act Conflict Mineral Rule required US 🇺🇸 downstream companies to ensure tin, tantalum & tungsten weren’t financing armed groups in the DRC 🇨🇩

Exports from the region fell 76%, all trade partners adapted to the US rule & local mineral prices dropped 16.5% 📉

1/6 Does requiring stronger due diligence for foreign sourcing work? 🤔

Our latest policy note by @nmoreaukastler.bsky.social and @giuliavaraschin.bsky.social looks at the US experience with conflict minerals 🧵

Read the full note: www.taxobservatory.eu/publication/...

🇧🇷 Brazil's President @lulaoficialbluesky.bsky.social opened the UN General Assembly with powerful messages, including a strong call for taxing the super-rich.

Today, our Policy Director, @qparrinello.bsky.social, was auditioned by the FISC Committee of the European Parliament on the implications of Trump administration tax policies on Europe 🇪🇺

📺 Watch the full session: multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/webstream...

This week's #LunchSeminar with Laurence Jacquet (‪ @cy-univ.bsky.social ) will focus on production regulation principles and tax reforms.

🗓️ September 26 | 12 PM (CET)
📍 Join us in person at @pse.bsky.social or online via Zoom

🔗 Register here: us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

World Inequality Conference 2026 - World Inequality Lab The World Inequality Lab is organizing the third edition of the World Inequality Conference, to be held at the Paris School of Economics on June 4-5, 2026.

📢 We’re excited to announce that the 3rd edition of the World Inequality Conference will take place on 4–5 June 2026 in Paris.

📄The call for papers is now open — submit by December 1!

▶️ inequalitylab.world/en/event/wor...

@pse.bsky.social @cris-sciencespo.bsky.social @taxobservatory.bsky.social

6/6 📢 The solution: expand reporting standards to include real estate, create unified asset registries, and improve enforcement.

Without international coordination, cities like Dubai will remain blind spots for hidden wealth.

Full paper: www.taxobservatory.eu/publication/...

5/6 🌍 Experts warn of a structural asymmetry: capital moves freely, but legal authority and information do not.

Developing countries are especially vulnerable, unable to reclaim illicit wealth.

4/6 🕵️‍♂️ The problem? Global agreements let tax authorities track bank accounts, but not real estate.

This creates billions in untaxed rental and capital gains, with $2.7B from Dubai alone escaping taxation each year.

3/6 ⚠️ Offshore real estate serves as a destination for sanctions- and war-driven capital flight: Russians made an additional $2-6B worth of investments following the invasion of Ukraine.

2/6 💰 Like offshore bank accounts, these properties are mostly owned by the wealthy. Yet it’s highly opaque: only 20% of owners report these properties to their home tax authorities, even when legally required.

🧵1/6 #Dubai’s real estate market isn’t just booming, it’s also a major hub for offshore real estate investment.

Our study reveals that 1/3 of the city’s residential property (~$68B) is owned by non-resident foreigners, dwarfing most major global cities.

👉 www.taxobservatory.eu/publication/...

Guess what? EUTO #LunchSeminar is back! 🚀

🎙️Join Margarita López Forero ( @banquedefrance-off.bsky.social ) for an interesting discussion on offshoring wage inequality in tax havens.

🗓️ September 19 | 12pm (CET)
📍 @pse.bsky.social & Zoom

🔗 Register here: us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

YouTube video by Quotidien Taxer les ultra-riches : la taxe Zucman expliquée par son créateur

This September, the “Zucman Tax” is back on France’s political agenda.

Hear directly from its creator, @gabrielzucman.bsky.social, as he explains what this tax is all about ⤵️

Watch the full interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zv1...

💬 @giuliavaraschin.bsky.social: "The proposal is for a minimum level of taxation that would simply fill the current gap and ensure the ultra-rich pay as much in taxes as everyone else."

🎥 Watch the full interview: www.raiplay.it/video/2025/0...

6/ This research offers a rare global lens on how multinational banks shift profits through debt and calls for targeted policy responses to close offshore loopholes.

📄 Read the full paper by Lorenzo Garlanda-Longueville, Mathias Lé & @kparraramirez.bsky.social: www.taxobservatory.eu/es/publicati...

5/ 📉 The authors estimate that 57% to 88% of intra-group banking debt in tax havens lacks real economic substance.
That’s not real financing, it's aggressive tax planning, distorting global banking stats.

4/ This behaviour is strongest among banks in high-tax countries.

Debt flows systematically to low-tax jurisdictions across the globe, including within the EU 🇪🇺, where regulatory rules are harmonized.

3/ The study finds that banks strategically shift intra-group debt to tax havens, even when accounting for differences in regulation.

📌 Reinforcing that it's tax strategies, not regulatory differences, driving these choices.

2/ 🔍 Until now, it’s been hard to untangle tax motives from regulatory arbitrage. But using a unique dataset of international banks and offshore centres, the authors isolate the tax effect, and the results are notable.

🧵 1/ Over 20% of global banking debt is booked in #TaxHavens. Why do international banks rely so heavily on low-tax jurisdictions with tiny economies?

Our latest Working Paper provides the first global evidence of large-scale debt shifting to avoid taxes 👇

www.taxobservatory.eu/es/publicati...

YouTube video by EU Tax Observatory Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism with Brooke Harrington

Our third #TheOffshoreTalks with @ebharrington.bsky.social and @chrisaltereco.bsky.social explored how offshore finance fuels economic crises and austerity, while also undermining democracy.

📺 Missed it live? Catch the full lecture now on our YouTube channel → youtu.be/WNE6ssttHP4

YouTube video by International Growth Centre Uncovering dirty profits: the global allocation of extractives | International Growth Centre

💬 "When oil and mining prices and extractive profits increase, we observe overbooking of profits in tax havens."

Don’t miss @nmoreaukastler.bsky.social & Pierre Bachas on "Uncovering Dirty Profits: The Global Allocation of Extractives"🎥👇

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JAf...

💰 Interested in where profits from extractives really go?

Don’t miss tomorrow’s session with @nmoreaukastler.bsky.social and Pierre Bachas!

🗓️ 7 Aug | 15:00 CEST

🔗 Sign up: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...