Book Description

"This book is a brilliant collection of case studies depicting an in-depth overview of the origins of tax evasion and tax havens in select countries in Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It does an excellent job in enhancing our understanding of the history of tax havens and its link to capitalist globalisation." -Aretha Campbell, author of Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Tax Evasion (Palgrave, 2021) "This book is the very best in-depth historical study we have of tax evasion and tax havens, and the related development of modern states, over the period since globalisation gathered momentum in the late nineteenth century." -W. Elliot Brownlee, Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara This collective book offers a panorama of the history of tax evasion, tax avoidance and tax havens from the nineteenth century to the present day, based on the latest research in contemporary history. It aims to show that this phenomenon is at the heart of global capitalism, partly as a response of the ruling classes to the rise of progressive taxation, but for other reasons too: notably the development of a powerful tax evasion and avoidance industry in different countries. The book argues that tax competition between states has stimulated the development of tax havens. It discusses the notion of the 'tax haven' and proposes a more rigorous concept - that of the 'tax predator'. Finally, the book sheds light on the socio-political conflicts that have developed around tax evasion and the way in which states have fought against or tolerated the phenomenon. Sébastien Guex is Full Professor of History at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. His research interests lie in social, economic and political history, and he has studied public finance, taxes, and tax havens - in particular the Swiss tax haven. He is a member of the federal commission in charge of the publication of the Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland series. Finally, he is one of the founders, in 2002, of one of the most influential NGOs on tax policy at the international level, the Tax Justice Network (TJN). Hadrien Buclin is a part-time Lecturer at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He was also, in 2017-2019, a visiting research fellow at Paris 1 University. His research focuses on the social and political history of Switzerland in the twentieth century. He is the author of Les intellectuels de gauche: critique et consensus dans la Suisse d'après-guerre (1945-1968) (2019), as well as several scientific papers.