This short video (above) has all the makings of a horror or thriller film. It shows a group of malevolent masked robbers entering a hospital building and embarking on a chilling mission – emptying the hospital of its equipment and resources, oblivious to the needs of the patients.
Only at the end does it deliver its stark message: “When companies don’t pay their fair share of tax, poor countries are stripped of funds needed for vital services like hospitals. Demand governments act to stop tax dodging. Help beat poverty.”
The hard-hitting film was devised by Oxfam, an international confederation of NGOs focused on the alleviation of global poverty, to make a chilling point about the devastating human cost of tax evasion. According to them, just a third of the tax evaded by big corporates and multi-national companies would be enough to prevent the needless deaths of millions of mothers and children.
Claiming that the poorest countries lose out on an estimated $100 billion in tax revenue every year, Oxfam is pushing people to demand that governments act against the tax evasion. Don’t Panic, the producers of the film, used the premise of a heist to present the complex issue in a way that people could relate to and understand.
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