News & Media

Delighted to have the support of 13-year-old Sophie!

October 5, 2017

Our Humanitarian Specialist, Darren Brunk, went along to Sophie’s school to receive her donation.

We are incredibly grateful to have the support of one of the coolest 13-year-olds out – Sophie Guerin. She sold hot drinks at her school in Wellington and raised a massive $627 which she chose to give to Oxfam. We can’t thank her enough for her support of those people who need it most.

Our Humanitarian Specialist, Darren Brunk, went along to Sophie’s school to receive the donation, and to have a chat with her:

How did you raise so much money?

I started fundraising at school every Wednesday at lunchtime, selling hot drinks. I was selling cordial for $1.50 and hot chocolate for $2. All the money was to go to Oxfam. I got my friends to help me. It was all student involvement.

Why did you choose to donate it to Oxfam?

I wanted a charity that would help lots of places around the world, and also one I could trust. I was looking at charities on the internet, and I found Oxfam and had heard of it before. I knew it was safe and it was what I wanted and so I decided to go with them.

What do you like about Oxfam?

I think it’s good because they focus on everything, they don’t just focus on one thing. They help lots of people in lots of places. They also help people start businesses.

What kind of change would you like your money to make in people’s lives?

I would want it to help people. When people have had troubles, such as becoming sick because they have had bad water, I want them now to have fresh water and food and to have business opportunities so that their lives can be better.

If you could change one thing about the world, what would you change?

I think I’d change… selfishness, so there wouldn’t be any selfishness so that everybody would always be looking out for each other. There wouldn’t be things like poverty and wars because people would care about each other.

Amazon’s prime tax deal: Luxembourg offered retailer massive unfair discount

October 5, 2017

Online retailer Amazon has received 250 million euros in illegal state aid from Luxembourg, the European Commission said today. This is the fifth high-profile decision on tax deals, like the one between the Irish government and Apple.

In response, Aurore Chardonnet, Oxfam EU policy advisor on inequality and tax, said:

“Governments are letting big business off the hook when it comes to paying the billions they owe in tax. This is unsustainable and unfair as taxes are required to fund public services like education and healthcare. When large companies, such as Amazon, don’t pay their fair share of tax, small businesses and citizens end up unjustly footing their bill.

“Some EU governments have secretive tax deals with multinationals and this needs to stop. Governments are meant to represent the interests of their citizens and not only those of corporations. It is also disappointing to see that the Irish government continues to delay collecting the billions in unpaid tax from Apple after their tax deal was exposed last year.

“Only tax transparency will allow citizens to hold decision-makers to account, expose companies’ potential wrong-doing and fix the tax system. In July, the European Parliament voted for rules for multinationals to automatically disclose where they generate their profits and where they pay their taxes. These should now swiftly be adopted.”

Notes to editors:

The European Commission launched its investigation into the tax schemes operated by Amazon in Luxembourg in October 2014. The company received significant tax reductions by the way of ‘tax rulings’ issued by Luxembourg authorities since 2003. The European Commission has also opened investigations into Luxembourg’s tax dealings with McDonald’s in December 2015, and with ENGIE in September 2016.
The decision on Amazon follows earlier Commission decisions on tax deals of by Ireland with Apple in September 2016 as well as the Netherlands with Starbucks and Luxembourg with Fiat in October 2015. In January 2016, the European Commission has also declared illegal selective tax advantages granted by Belgium under its “excess profit” tax scheme, which has benefitted at least 35 multinational companies.
According to the European Commission, tax rulings may involve state aid within the meaning of EU rules if they are used to provide selective advantages to a specific company or group of companies.
In December 2015, the EU adopted a directive aimed at improving the exchange of information on tax rulings given by member states to companies on advance cross-border tax rulings, as well as advance pricing arrangements. However, the public will not be allowed to access this information.
In July 2017, the European Parliament adopted legislation for so-called public country-by-country reporting, obliging companies to disclose information on profits made and taxes paid for each country they operate in. The Parliament and EU member states have now to agree on a final version of the legislation.
Oxfam America has published the report “Rigged Reform” in April, which exposes how the US’s 50 largest corporations relied on an opaque and secretive network of subsidiaries in tax havens to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

We’re still fighting for a Zero Carbon New Zealand

October 4, 2017

This was far from being the ‘boring election’ many thought it was going to be – and almost two weeks after the last vote was cast, its result is still uncertain.

We knew Oxfam’s election story was also going to be far from boring when we led a coalition of 15 aid agencies to campaign for all political parties to commit New Zealand to legally binding pollution reduction targets.

All these agencies have witnessed the number of climate-related humanitarian disasters more than double since 1980. This means that climate change has the potential to wind back development progress made over the last 60 years, creating havoc in developed and developing countries alike. After many years working in long-term development solutions and responding to humanitarian disasters in over 90 countries, all of us agree that this is one of the biggest development challenges of the 21st century.

You Backed the Plan

From secular to faith-based agencies, from Dargaville to Dunedin, the agencies – representing hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders with a variety of political views, but who are all equally concerned about the many problems our children will face in the near future due to climate change – all knew it wouldn’t be easy to bring climate change to the top of the political agenda. But with your help, we did it.

During the months leading up to the election, more than 5,000 New Zealanders got behind our campaign Back the Plan – Back to Zero and demanded a real climate commitment from all political parties. This led to a huge success as we secured a commitment from Labour, Greens and NZ First on legislation to reduce New Zealand’s pollution. But our work is far from finished.

Whatever the final election result is, we will continue to fight for a fairer, more just New Zealand.

Climate change is happening now and is affecting us all – our Pacific neighbours, our communities, our businesses and people living in poverty. We will continue to work with the newly elected government and hold it to account as we advocate for a cross-party agreement that puts the future of our children first: a Zero Carbon Act.

As the Electoral Commission is still counting the 380,000 special votes remaining, whatever the result, we will continue to call for our MPs to legislate a Zero Carbon Act and make New Zealand carbon-neutral by 2050.

Watch this space.

Unprecedented movement of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh leads to a humanitarian crisis

October 3, 2017

A young woman receives food aid at the Bulakhali camp in Bangladesh, where 13,500 people are seeking humanitarian assistance. Oxfam plans to assist more than 200,000 people with emergency support. Photo: AJM Zobaidur Rahman/Oxfam

Oxfam is responding with water, sanitation, and other essentials

Half a million people have arrived in Bangladesh from Myanmar since August. This unprecedented influx of refugees in a short period of time has led to a large and escalating humanitarian crisis.

The camps are not equipped to handle the surge of people. More than 70 percent of the at least 501,000 refugees are without adequate shelter, and half of them have no safe drinking water. They are in need life-saving assistance including clean drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene, and essential food and emergency supplies.

Working with local partners NGO Forum for Public Health and Coast Trust, Oxfam has reached more than 100,000 people with clean drinking water, portable toilets and sanitation facilities, and food including rice, sugar, and fortified biscuits. We are also working with the government and other agencies to make sure that new refugee camps are designed to meet humanitarian standards.

Here, you can see the conditions in which refugees in Bangladesh are living.

Photo: Tommy Trenchard/Panos

Balukhali camp in southern Bangladesh is now home to thousands of refugees.

Photo: Tommy Trenchard/Panos

Men drill for water in Balukhali camp.

Photo: Aurélie Marrier d’Unienville

A group of girls collect drinking water for their families from a pump in Balhukali camp.

Photo: Aurélie Marrier d’Unienville

A father carries his son across a broken bamboo bridge at the edge of Balhukali camp in Bangladesh. Three days of heavy rains have flooded many of the areas where refugees had set up temporary shelters, forcing them to move to higher ground.

Photo: Aurélie Marrier d’Unienville

A Rohingya man carries a bag of food aid.

Photo: Oxfam

Mahmud, 65, is staying in a new settlement at Cox’s Bazar. He has been in Bangladesh for two weeks, but this is the first time he could use a latrine.

In total, we are planning to reach more than 200,000 people. To help us reach them, and other vulnerable people affected by disasters, please donate to our Disaster Response Fund today.

Donate

US: tax cuts for the rich, budget cuts for the poor

September 28, 2017

Thankgod Chigizie sits inside his school classroom. His community, Rumuekpe, in Nigeria, was badly destroyed during the conflict among various rival militants and gangs over access to oil money from 2005-2008. Many were killed and displaced, and homes, schools and churches were left in ruins. Photo: George Osodi/Panos for Oxfam America

Newest US tax cut proposal would rig tax rules even further.

In the US, the leadership of the House and Senate joined together with President Trump yesterday to release a new tax cut plan they aim to pass before the end of 2017. In short, it is bad.

The proposal is a blueprint for increasing inequality in the US and around the world. Here are a few key reasons why:

1. The plan’s main feature is huge tax cuts for large multinational companies that the public hates.

Right now large American companies use offshore tax havens and other complex schemes to avoid nearly $135 billion in taxes every year. The top 50 US companies alone have more than $1.6 stashed offshore. But instead of reforming the tax code so these companies must pay what they owe, the plan actually gets rid of all federal taxes companies must pay for profits earned offshore, offers companies a one-time special low rate to repatriate the profits they have already earned, and lowers the rate on all domestic profits companies earn in the future from 35 percent to 20 percent at most.

In other words, the plan rewards huge tax dodgers with a massive tax cut. Not only do these ideas lack logic, public polling shows that they are hugely unpopular. The Wall Street Journal recently released a poll showing that most Americans believe corporations should actually pay higher taxes:

In spite of pervasive myths that the US taxes companies at higher rates than other countries, US companies pay about the average effective tax rate of other wealthy nations. This matters to the poor because corporate taxes are among the most progressive kinds of taxes the US can rely on to raise revenues. Cutting this rate will disproportionately benefit the wealthy and result in either higher taxes for the middle class or cuts to programs that help the poor, either of which would send inequality in the wrong direction.

We have already seen efforts to severely slash funding for life-saving global anti-poverty programs in the President’s FY 2017 budget. If this tax cut plan passes, those budget pressures would be amplified dramatically in the future.

2. The plan would make it harder for poor countries to raise their own revenue.

The proposal moves the US from a “worldwide” system of corporate taxation to a “territorial” system. In simple terms, this means that American companies would no longer pay any US taxes for any profits earned abroad. This would create a greater incentive for US companies operating in poor countries to use tricks and schemes to shift their profits into tax havens. Many companies already do this, but rather than stemming tax haven abuse by American companies, the plan would accelerate it.

Additionally, this shift would force poor countries to compete with each other to offer special tax incentives to US companies to attract their business. For countries already struggling to provide even the most basic education, healthcare and infrastructure, these incentives can be costly and will make it harder for countries to ensure the poor benefit from increased foreign investment.

3. The plan will drive a global race to the bottom.

Many rich countries are watching the US tax reform debates closely and planning their own countermeasures in response. The proponents of corporate tax cuts argue that they will make the US more “competitive” globally. But just as they did when the US cut tax rates in the 80s, other rich countries will lower their own taxes. Britain has already pledged to have the lowest rate among the G7 richest countries. France and Germany have signalled they would lower their rate, too.

Moreover, rich countries are already struggling to compete with tax havens with tax rates as low as zero. There is simply no way to cut your way out of this problem. The solution must be to work collaboratively with other countries to prevent multinational companies from gaming the system. Measures to prevent companies from abusing offshore tax havens and to ensure that companies are paying taxes where their economic activity is truly occurring is the only long-term solution that can prevent a perpetual race to the bottom.

There are many reasons to oppose these tax-cut plans, but those are three of the core reasons that Oxfam – as a global anti-poverty organization – believes the proposal is so dangerous for poorer people.

Oxfam’s reaction to the new US tax plan

September 27, 2017

In response to the tax plan outline proposed jointly by President Trump and Congressional leaders, Paul O’Brien, Oxfam America’s Vice-President for Policy and Advocacy, made the following statement:

“The tax plan introduced today is a blueprint for increased inequality. There is no doubt that the biggest winners in our global economy are those at the top, and this proposal will skew that even further.

“Instead of the real reform the President promised on the campaign trail, this plan offers more tax cuts for the rich and budget cuts for the poor. While President Trump was elected on his promise to fix the rigged political and economic system, these proposals will only further rig the rules in favor of the rich and powerful while harming poor families in the US and in developing countries worldwide.

“Every year corporate tax dodging costs Americans approximately $135 billion. The same tricks, schemes, and offshore tax havens sap an estimated $100 billion from poor countries – revenue that should go towards building schools, bridges and hospitals. The plans released today do nothing to solve these problems.

“Worse yet, the ideas offered today perversely reward the very companies that dodge the most taxes. This plan will incentivize further use of offshore tax havens that harm America and poor countries alike. Huge tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations will have to be paid for by cuts in anti-poverty programs at a time when need for global engagement and solutions to inequality is only growing. If anything the plans will incentivize companies to offshore more jobs and profits.

“The President and Congress should go back to the drawing board and start over with a plan that works with our allies around the world to stem tax haven abuse. Only through cooperation can we avoid a global race to the bottom where everyone but the richest will suffer.”

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