Pope Francis will preside on Thursday, February 13, a forum on fiscal justice and solidarity in the Vatican, in which a good number of world leaders will participate, some remotely and others in the presence, and address the concern of the Catholic Church for inequality In the world.
The forum Fiscal Justice and Solidarity: Towards a common, inclusive and sustainable home It has been organized by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT).
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After an introduction in which the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin will speak, Pope Francis will be in charge of opening the first debate panel with “a few words,” the ICRICT reported in a statement.
Throughout the day, other interventions such as that of the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, or the Brazilian, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are expected, which, where appropriate, will participate virtually.
Other political and economic personalities such as the former president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, or the American economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize in 2001 and Co -President of ICRICT, will do so instead from the headquarters of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (Pass ).
The objective, according to the organizers in the web page of the Vatican agency, is to put on the table how inequality is largely fed by an unfair international tax system.
“The fiscal elusion by multinational corporations is one of the most toxic aspects of globalization,” they point out from the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.
Thus, they affect that some large corporations by moving a part of its benefits to tax havens “deprive the public sectors of the critical resources necessary to invest in fundamental human rights.”
This implies an obstacle that makes global challenges such as the fight against climate change, the needs of the most indebted countries, and the fulfillment of the sustainable development objectives.
“These are the great problems of world society and we need to propose international reforms to advance fiscal justice through international cooperation,” they detail.
In 2022, the Holy Father He already addressed this problem and asked for a fiscal system that “must favor the redistribution of wealth, safeguarding the dignity of the poor and the little ones, who are always at risk of being trampled by the powerful.”
The taxes “must be fair,” said the pontiff, and based on the “ability of each person to pay.”
Victoria Cardiel
Victoria Cardiel is a journalist specialized in social and religious information issues. Since 2013, he has covered all the news of the Vatican for various media, such as the Spanish news agency Europa Press, or the weekly of the Archdiocese of Madrid, Alfa and Omega.