The Heavens, by Paolo Woods and Gabriele Galimberti (Dewi Lewis Publishing, £39)

WE’VE all heard of tax havens and how big global corporations circumvent paying taxes. But do we know how they do it and what they look like? 

This book takes an innovative approach to the subject, providing a visual reflection of what exactly is involved. 

In one sense it is a contradiction, being a large and elaborately produced coffee table art book with evocative, full-colour images on expensive paper. 

But at the same time it is an excoriating exposure of the corrosive force of unregulated commerce and privateering. “In the last two decades the share of US companies’ profits that are not taxed has increased by around 10 per cent whereas the share taken by labour has shrunk significantly,” the accompanying text informs us.

The collaborators faced the daunting task of making the seemingly intangible world of global finance tangible, translating a virtual reality of massaged figures, balance sheets and digital money transactions into concrete images. They have succeeded amazingly well, with the carefully chosen words of Nicholas Shaxson (author of Treasure Islands) unravelling the reality behind the often eye-popping images. 

The lavish illustrations have the look of a glossy annual report by one of the big companies and the authors took this idea seriously enough to actually register “The Heavens” as a company in the tax-free haven of Delaware in the US for a few dollars, with no questions asked and no ID necessary.

A serene night-time panorama of Panama City’s skyscrapers through the eyes of someone in the swimming pool on the 66th floor of the Trump Ocean Club is contrasted a few pages on with a Philippine housemaid standing naked at a cheap hotel room window, seeing only her own sad reflection in the dark glass. This is where she works as a prostitute to supplement her meagre income. 

In another powerful image, wealthy US tourists are taken on board a mock-up pirate ship for a tour around the Cayman Islands, an apt image for this notorious tax haven. Not unconnected to such havens is of course the City of London — in her inner sanctum, the then lord mayor Fiona Woolf sits sedately on a gold-embossed, velvet-covered couch, beneath a collection of Flemish paintings, smiling confidently because her world feels so safe and secure. 

Books like this will, hopefully, help expose this world of subterfuge, venality and extortion for what it is.