The report. Citigroup – a culture and history of tax evasion
By Lucy Komisar
This report describes and details a history of tax evasion by the world‘s largest
financial conglomerate, Citigroup. Going back decades, it is a story of
repeated, aggressive tax evasion for itself and clients, depriving governments
and therefore citizens of huge amounts of funds and carried out with relative
impunity.
The Tax Justice Network nominates Citigroup for the Public Eye on Davos
Award for excelling in socially irresponsible behavior by engaging in tax
evasion and facilitating tax evasion by its clients. By its actions, Citigroup has
violated both international money-laundering rules and the highest standards of
corporate social responsibility and ethics.
Tax evasion by corporations and the very rich impoverishes people of all
countries, increases the gaping divide between the rich and the poor, and
shifts the tax bill to the middle class and small businesses who don‘t and can‘t
avail themselves of mechanisms created for hiding and laundering income and
profits. The capital flight that is a function of tax evasion beggars the
economies of developing countries, transferring the wealth of the poor to the
industrial world.