The Christian Science Monitor: Why Authorities Just Raided Caterpillar

The questions go beyond whether the financial activities were legal or illegal. The news puts names and faces on the problems of political cronyism and tax evasion by the wealthy, and on the global scale of these problems. That’s politically volatile in its own right. But the news, arriving at a time income inequality is an issue of high worldwide concern, also suggests that global tolerance of tax havens is one of the important roots of the rich-poor gap.

“Financial secrecy enables inequality. Tax havens enable inequality,” says Matthew Gardner, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonprofit research organization in Washington. Read more