Critics Stage Mock IMF Press Conference to Protest Harmful Tax Policies

“Imperialist Monetary Fund” to Call for Federal Sales Tax on Eve of IMF Meetings and of Annual Tax Filing Deadline

Apr 11, 2007
by Mobilization for Global Justice

WHAT: Mock IMF press conference to call for “tax reform” in the U.S.
WHERE: 19th St. and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington DC
WHEN: 12 noon on Thursday, April 12, 2007

Washington DC-based activist group Mobilization for Global Justice (MGJ) is planning a theatrical press conference in protest of IMF policies to mark the institution’s spring meetings. In particular, on the eve of the annual tax filing deadline of April 16, MGJ is calling attention to regressive tax policies pushed by the IMF on borrowing countries, which systematically transfer the tax burden from the wealthy to the poor.

“Tax policy is not a mere abstraction. It has very real, often disastrous effects on real people on the ground,” said MGJ spokesperson Ruth Castel-Branco. “With this action, we intend to strip away the mask of abstraction that covers these policies, exposing the reality of their impacts,” she added.

In many countries around the world, the IMF has pressured governments of borrowing countries to enact regressive taxes such as National Sales Taxes or Value Added Taxes, the impact of which fall disproportionately on poor people. The IMF has also refused to allow these governments to exempt essentials such as food and medicines from these taxes. Simultaneously, they have required countries to cut taxes on the wealthy, such as estate taxes and capital gains taxes.

Examples of regressive IMF tax policy around the world include:
• The IMF is pressuring the government of Zambia to remove the exemptions from Value Added Tax for mosquito nets (essential for public health in this malaria-affected country), food, water, and sewage service.;
• In Pakistan, the IMF used a military government to impose the General Sales Tax (GST), a national sales tax on most consumer items. At the same time, they pressured the government to eliminate the Wealth Tax;
• The IMF forced the Dominican Republic to raise the Value Added Tax on essential goods – in the words of Finance Minister Vicente Bengoa, “at gun point”.

MGJ is conducting a mock “Imperialist Monetary Fund” press conference to highlight the role of the IMF in using taxes to enrich foreign investors at the expense of the world’s majority. According to MGJ spokesperson Basav Sen, “By proposing such things as a Federal sales tax for the U.S., and the complete elimination of the Capital Gains Tax and the Earned Income Tax Credit, we are illustrating how extreme the tax policies of the IMF are.” The tax policies of the Bush Administration, while widely recognized as highly regressive, “do not even begin to approach IMF policies in their sheer ideological extremism,” said Sen.

The most ironic twist in IMF tax policy is that the IMF itself is exempt from all taxes, along with its sister institutions, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, in spite of the fact that the trio of institutions own $1.4 billion worth of property in Washington DC. “Evidently, the IMF exempts itself from the requirement of paying taxes to ensure adequate governmental revenues,” said Castel-Branco.

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