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Asia Day of Action calls for “Tax Justice for Genuine People’s Recovery!”

By Campaign, Events, Global Inequalities

This press release coincides with the launch of the Asia Days of Action on Tax Justice, and highlights actions being taken by APMDD’s partners in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and the Philippines.

The statement demands changes and reforms in tax and fiscal systems, asking governments and the UN General Assembly to take action by ending unjust tax burdens on the poor, fairly and sharply taxing the wealth and income of corporations and the elite and ensuring taxes are used to meet people’s basic needs.

Download now (English)
23 September 2023
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Tax Justice Now, towards Ending Inequalities And Building People’s Recovery and Resilience

By Campaign, Global Inequalities

The multiple crises brought to the fore by the pandemic have widened inequalities that had already been present and worsening before the COVID-19 outbreak. Any serious attempt at ensuring peoples’ recovery and addressing inequalities would require bold and decisive actions that strike at the root causes of inequalities and multiple crises.

Read the statement

23 September 2023
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Melihat Uang Pajak Negara Disalahgunakan: Perempuan Menuntut Keadilan Pajak

By Indonesia

Korupsi dan penyalahgunaan jabatan telah mengakibatkan hilangnya sumber pendapatan negara dan pemiskinan dari generasi ke generasi. Perempuan terus menghadapi ketimpangan gender dan ketimpangan ekonomi, dan diharuskan membayar pajak barang konsumsi sehingga semakin membebani kehidupan diri mereka dan keluarganya. Menurut rilisan pers BPS, jumlah penduduk miskin pada September 2022 meningkat menjadi 26,36 juta jiwa. Persentase perempuan yang hidup di bawah garis kemiskinan nasional selalu lebih tinggi dibandingkan laki-laki. Pada Maret 2022, persentase perempuan adalah 9,68%, sementara laki-laki 9,40%. Kemiskinan ini disebabkan oleh PHK, kenaikan harga BBM, kenaikan harga bahan pokok, dan ketidakadilan pajak.

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9 Maret 2023
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Global Protest to Fight Inequality 2023

By Campaign, Events, Global Inequalities, India, Uncategorized

On 20 January 2023, the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development and its members participated in the Global Protest to Fight Inequality, an annual event initiated by the Fight Inequality Alliance.

APMDD members in India, Pakistan, Philippines and other parts of Asia staged actions and other activities to draw attention to the impacts of tax and other policies on inequalities everywhere, reiterate the call to “tax the rich,” and to amplify civil society demands for solutions to the multiple crises and policy reforms towards ending inequalities and building a genuine people’s recovery.

The protest featured initiatives by grassroots organisations – including street vendors and hawkers in India, farmers and fisherfolk in Pakistan, street vendors, agricultural workers, women in the informal economy and other sectors in the Philippines – are the results of capacity building, networking and strategising activities conducted in 2021 and 2022, including awareness-raising on wealth tax advocacy. 

Click here to learn about the Global Protest to Fight Inequality 2022

23 Januari 2023
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Press Conference – Tax Justice Now, For People’s Recovery

By Events, Global Inequalities

On 15 September 2022, the Tax and Fiscal Justice Asia (TAFJA) network held the press conference “Tax Justice Now, For People’s Recovery” to amplify civil society calls for tax justice, especially addressing governments and the international community as the 77th UN General Assembly meets on 13-27 September 2022.

Tax justice campaigns aim to uphold peoples’ needs and rights amid deepening multiple crises. Today, the scale of the crises has most dramatically worn the face of the peoples of Asia. Tens of thousands of people have fled large parts of Pakistan badly hit by climate emergency-induced flooding. The people of Sri Lanka are suffering hunger and deprivations of basic necessities because of bankruptcy and runaway inflation resulting from “ill-conceived economic reforms like tax cuts and servicing debt payments.”

Other peoples in Asia are equally vulnerable to the impacts of crises but governments ignore peoples’ situation or, worst, resort to intimidation and repression to silence critical voices.

During the press conference, speakers discussed the flaws of tax systems that dominate the region; and the requirements of genuine people’s recovery that are severely hampered by continuing tax abuses and illicit financial flows by the elite and multinational corporations.

Speakers:

● Farooq Tariq, Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee
● Vidya Dinker, Indian Social Action Forum
● Luke Espiritu, Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (Solidarity of Filipino Workers)
● Sudhir Shrestha, South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication
● Ah Maftuchan, The Prakarsa (Welfare Initiative for Better Societies)
● Tony Salvador, Third World Network
● Dereje Alemayehu, Global Alliance for Tax Justice
● Jeannie Manipon, Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development

Watch the press conference

16 September 2022
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Tax Justice Now for People’s Recovery!

By Campaign, Global Inequalities

Tax justice groups in Asia are calling for a Day of Action on Tax Justice to be staged on September 23 to demand changes and reforms on taxes and fiscal system with Jeannie Manipon of The Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD) saying that “national tax systems are biased in favor of MNCs and the elites. We can also see the similar pattern in the international tax system”, emphasizing that a progressive mechanism must be put in place in order to allow the removal of the backwards tax and fiscal system.

In an online press conference organized by the Tax and Fiscal Justice – Asia (TAFJA), the combined and resounding messages of speakers stressed that regressive tax policies exemplified by VAT and GST impact women, workers, farmers and other marginalized sectors the most and severely undermine their capacities to prepare for, respond to, survive recover and rebuild when crisis or natural disasters strike. Regressive tax systems, with their elite and gender biases are legacies of colonialism, part of systems that enable countries of the Global North to extract wealth from the Global South.

Read the full press release.

15 September 2022
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Tax the Rich, Not the Poor!: A Call to Institute A Wealth Tax

By Events, Global Inequalities

“A wealth tax is a potent tool for equality and justice…. Groups based in the Philippines calling for a wealth tax are advocating for one of the most direct ways to stem inequality by reversing the highly regressive tax system that governments across Asia have long depended on to sustain basic public services. Regressive taxes such as Value-Added Tax (VAT) and excise taxes have long been known to hit those with smaller incomes harder, and have thus helped to widen the gap between poor and rich, women and men, marginalized sectors and influential elites.”

The Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development held a webinar on 24 August 2022, attended by nearly 300 people to release the findings of the study it commissioned recently on “Inequality, Tax Justice and the Philippine Wealth Tax Campaign”. A press release was issued on the same day, making an appeal for the use of a wealth tax in the Philippines and across Asia. Read more here.

2 September 2022
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