Production Of Beef, Soy And Fishing In The Amazon Is Connected With Tax Heavens

08/15/2018 - 13h52

Economic activities with high environmental impact as meat and soy production in the Amazon and overfishing are connected with tax havens all over the world, reveals a new study.

In the last two decades, both activities received billions of dollars in funding and institutional support from places famous for symbolic or nonexist taxes and no financial transparency, like the Cayman Islands, Panama and the Bahamas.

The paper was published by "Nature Ecology & Evolution". The research was led by Victor Galaz, from the University of Stockholm, in Sweden.

In most cases, there is no direct evidence of criminal activity enabled by this connection with tax haven. But the use of funding located in these countries increases the risk for tax evasion and could affect transparency and control of these kind of activities that carry high environmental impact.

"It would be possible to use statistical models to show that these investment boosted deforestation," said Galaz. "But in order to do it, we would need more financial data, which we don't have access, in part because the tax havens allow exactly for this kind of secrecy."

For large companies, tax havens represent a series of attractive legal loopholes.

Translated by NATASHA MADOV

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