Attiya Waris

Attiya Waris (born 1974) is a Kenyan Professor at Nairobi University and a writer about financing development from diverse perspectives including illicit financial flows and corporate tax reform. She has spoken up against the policy that allowed Apple to have preferential tax rates in Ireland, She argues that Ireland's tax authorities are run by the upper classes who have forgotten the plight of their country's poor.

Attiya Waris
in 2018
Born1974
Nairobi
NationalityKenya
EducationUniversity of Lancaster, Pretoria, London and Nairobi
OccupationProfessor, researcher and writer
EmployerUniversity of Nairobi
Known forTax avoidance and human rights, llicit financial flows, fiscal law

Life

Waris was born in Nairobi in 1974. She earned her first degree at the University of Nairobi.[1] Waris took master's degrees in 2002 at the University of London and in 2004 at the University of Pretoria. Her doctorate in Tax Law was awarded by Lancaster University in 2009 following a thesis on "Solving the Fiscal Crisis: Re-legitimising the Fiscal State through the Realisation of Human Rights A Case Study of the Kenyan Constituency Development Fund" supervised by Prof. Sol Picciotto. From 2007 to 2013 she was vice-chair of the Tax Justice Network.[1]

Waris is an expert on tax avoidance and she appeared in the documentary film The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire.[2]

In 2013 she co-authored a book on "Tax Justice".[3]

The Irish Times quoted her opinions when Apple were order to pay $13 billion in avoided tax to the Irish government by the European Commission in 2016. Waris argued that human rights were being ignored given that the Irish government were appealing the decision and to allow Apple to avoid a lower corporate tax rate. Waris said the “People are so busy not watching information and too busy entertaining themselves. The lower tax rate was creating an environment in which countries like Kenya could not compete because Ireland was offering Apple tax rates that were below the cost of supplying service to the company. She argues that Ireland's tax authorities are run by the upper classes who have forgotten the plight of their country's poor.[4]

In 2020 she spoke out about Dutch firms who were growing cut flowers in Kenya. The companies were using addresses in Amsterdam to avoid tax on large turnovers. Attiya who had studied this industry noted they are using Kenyan land but they are avoiding paying for it. Investigators (Investico) had found by using Kenyan data and the Panama Papers that Dutch companies like Oserian were using trusts in Liechtenstein and the British Virgin Islands in 2011 to avoid nearly all tax in Kenya despite a 47m turnover.[5]

Works include
  • Tax Justice and the Political Economy of Global Capitalism, 1945 to the Present, 2013, with Jeremy Leaman[3]

References
  1. profiles.uonbi.ac.ke (PDF) https://profiles.uonbi.ac.ke/attiya/files/curriculum_vitae_.pdf. Retrieved 2018-12-19. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. "The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire". Retrieved 2018-12-19.
  3. Jeremy Leaman; Attiya Waris (2013). Tax Justice and the Political Economy of Global Capitalism, 1945 to the Present. Berghahn. ISBN 978-0-85745-881-0.
  4. Pollak, Sorcha. "'There's an inordinate amount of preference being shown to multinationals and to prices'". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2018-12-19.
  5. "A rose is a rose but taxes are different: Dutch growers dodge tax in Kenya". DutchNews.nl. 2020-02-26. Retrieved 2020-05-05.
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