Powering ideas through expertise: professionals in global tax battles

ABSTRACT

This contribution discusses how ideas are powered through expertise and moral authority. Professionals compete with each other to power ideas by linking claims to expertise, how things best work, to moral claims about how things should be. To show how, we draw on a case of battles over global tax policy. Corporate reporting for tax purposes is an area where the European Union, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United Nations, large global accountancy firms and non-governmental organizations have been active. The point of contention here is what form of financial reporting multinational corporations should provide to ensure they pay their fair share of tax. Ideas powered by expertise contain shared causal beliefs, as well as principled beliefs about value systems. We demonstrate that professionals can contest the established order when demonstrations of expertise can be fused with claims to moral authority. Such a constellation is more likely when political conditions are favourable.

KEY WORDS:

• Accounting
• activists
• expertise
• ideas
• NGOs
• professionals
• tax policy

Notes

1 This information was collected by the authors during multiple interviews with those named between 2011 and 2014, primarily in London, but also in Copenhagen, Chesham and Downham Market. This information was confirmed in a case study integrity meeting with the core of TJN and others in London in October 2013. The contribution draws on 41 interviews with practitioners, policy-makers and activists conducted between 2011 and 2015.

2 Interview with corporate tax lawyer, Brussels, May 2015.

3 Groups may share established interests, but expertise can destabilize such configurations and shift how issues are located in the governance triangle. These positions were identified in multiple interviews with tax activist and corporate tax planners conducted in New York, Copenhagen, Barbados, Madrid, Brussels and London between March 2011 and June 2015.

4 Richard Murphy's primary authorship of the CBCR template has been confirmed by multiple interviews with regulators, practitioners and activists during the interview period noted above.

5 Interview with Richard Murphy, Downham Market, January 2013.

6 Interviews with John Christensen and Richard Murphy, separately, London, March 2013.

7 Interviews with Richard Murphy, Downham Market, January 2013, and Sven Giegold, Brussels, March 2013.

8 Submissions to the consultation are available at: https://circabc.europa.eu/faces/jsp/extension/wai/navigation/container.jsp (accessed 26 November 2015).

9 The hearing can be viewed at: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20150624IPR70439/html/TAXEECON-Committees (accessed 26 November 2015).

10 Sol Picciotto now leads the BEPS Monitoring Group and is actively pushing for CBCR and unitary taxation at the OECD.

11 http://www.finance-watch.org/ (accessed 26 November 2015).

12 Interview with John Christensen, Skype, May 2015.

Additional information

Funding

Exploratory work for this piece was supported by the European Commission FP7 project, 2011 –2015, ‘GREEN – Global Reordering: Evolution through European Networks’ [#266809-GR:EEN]. Extensive research was funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020 Framework Program 2015–2018 [#649456-ENLIGHTEN].

Notes on contributors

Leonard Seabrooke

Biographical notes

Leonard Seabrooke is professor of international political economy at the Department of Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School.

Duncan Wigan

Duncan Wigan is associate professor of international political economy at the Department of Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School.