The Jubilee Blog

President Obama Visits Africa as Corporate Tax Avoidance and Debt Crisis Trap Millions of Africans in Poverty

  

President Obama is traveling to the African nations of Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa from June 26-July 3.  Read our press statement and backgrounder and recommendations below.

Jubilee for Students: A Weekend of Action and Prayer for our Youth’s Future

By: Heather Jue-Wong

This weekend over 55 faith communities around the nation will join hands in “Jubilee for Students” to keep college student interest rates low.  On July 1, interest rates for new subsidized Stafford student loans are set to double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. This would affect over 7 million college students.  Student debt nationwide recently surpassed $1 trillion and doubling interest rates would cause these students to incur an average of an additional $1,000 in debt annually.¹²

Jubilee USA Meets with the Global Jubilee Movement in Prague

By: Charley Allegar

Last week, the global Jubilee movement met in Prague to move forward our agenda to address the root causes of poverty within the current international financial architecture. Jubilee’s Director, Eric LeCompte spoke to the international audience of leading civil society groups and academics in the field of development finance on the need for a sovereign debt workout mechanism and the harmful behavior of vulture funds.

“Wake Up and Smell the Coffee” - G8 to Address Corporate Tax Dodging which Cripples Poor

By: Eric Long 

In two weeks, Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron will lead this year’s G8 summit, the annual forum of the world’s eight wealthiest nations. Cameron made curbing tax avoidance a priority at this year’s summit noting for leaders to “wake up and smell the coffee.” [1]  The criticism is in light of tax dodging by Starbucks and Google but the truth is that multinationals’ use of tax dodging is rampant and it impacts economies of all sizes.  Within the developing world, in particular, tax dodging costs about $160 billion in needed revenue every year.[2]

Around 868 million people worldwide go to bed hungry. That’s one in every eight people on this planet.[3] In some portions of the globe, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, the number of those starving is increasing.  Tax dodging by multinational corporations plays a significant role in these numbers.  Many of these corporations shift profits out of poor countries into tax havens, where they pay little to no taxes.[4][5] Revenue from taxes is vital for economic development, yet multinationals’ use of tax havens prevents needed revenue from reaching the poor.