Power to the people: tax is the way

Some more for our quotations page:

An adviser to the President of Sierra Leone told me that in the past, officials who had not even completed a school education were negotiating contracts worth billions of dollars with the best lawyers in the world.
David McNair, Christian Aid, April 2010

Mozambique is losing a lot of money in tax to international operations. There is no adequate legislation governing transfer pricing...when there is a request for transfer pricing placed with the tax authorities, nobody knows how to deal with the request
Unnamed official from a Big Four accountancy firm, via David McNair, Christian Aid, April 2010

The head of tax policy at a large multinational recently told me that companies are now allocating more profit and paying more tax to the most aggressive tax authorities to avoid expensive and difficult legal disputes over transfer pricing. As a result, fewer profits are allocated to developing countries.
David McNair, Christian Aid, April 2010

If poverty is a lack of social, economic and political power, then addressing poverty is putting that power back in the hands of the people. Tax is the way it can be done.
David McNair, Christian Aid, April 2010

The presentation is worth reading in its entirety.