SA-TIED researcher interviewed on tax haven research

SA-TIED researcher, Ludvig Wier, has featured in multiple South African news outlets explaining new research findings from the programme. Wier was invited to speak to anchors from South Africa’s national news channels, SABC and eNCA. He was also invited onto The Money Show with Bruce Whitfield, and Tonight with Jane Dutton to take part in a panel discussion on the issue of tax haven associated revenue loss.

In SA-TIED Working Paper #24, Ludvig Wier and co-author Hayley Reynolds estimated the total revenue loss to South Africa from profit shifting to be close to seven billion rand annually. In SA-TIED Working Paper #23, Wier examines transfer mispricing, which is one way that firms shift profits to tax havens specifically, and concludes that it makes up roughly 1/7th of profit shifting-related revenue losses. Wier suggests that it may be possible to recoup these losses through the use of new analytical tools that combine advances in data science with increased computational power.

Links to the interviews:

Listen: Ludvig Wier talks tax havens on the Money Show with Bruce Whitfield

Watch: Interview with Ludvig Wier on SABC News

Watch: SA-TIED research on eNCA news

Watch: A panel discusses new SA-TIED research on Tonight with Jane Dutton

In the interviews, Wier recommends investing in the tax authority and ensuring that they have the resources, staff, and tools necessary to collect public revenues from multinational enterprises that operate in tax havens. He also emphasizes the importance of continuing to work with other countries to find solutions to what is a global problem. An important avenue for such multilateralism has been the OECD's Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) programme, which South Africa has been a part of since its inception.  

In the longer term, Wier says that he supports the international adoption of a global formula apportionment system to counter issues of base erosion and profit shifting.