A speculative proposal for the creation of special ‘tax haven objects’ (inspired by Estonian e-residency) that direct revenue and content generated by social media influencers to long-term public interest projects. Created at Strelka Institute, Moscow in response to a seminar with Professor Keller Easterling.
A collaboration with:
Tom Pearson, British artist
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About:
Social media influencers form a decentralised industry trading in the creation of vacuous commercialised ‘content’. Unregulated, their latency is of one that encourages the further privatisation of urban space, while relying on public infrastructure for their imagery, audience base and working space. Like with other ‘platform’ companies, legislation for its taxation is lagging behind the evolution of the industry.
Tax haven objects (THOs) set up tax residency conditions for social media influencers, similar to the conditions of Estonian E-residency but on a localised project scale. Influencers apply for tax residency ‘in’ infrastructure projects, which may include a particle accelerator, a solar energy farm, a university building or a retirement home. Eligibility for status as a THO could be limited to centrally-defined projects or floated as an international platform with taxation conditions set by the THO itself (see example below).
The THO protocol would create an interplay of mutual sponsorship between the short-term rapid-fire promotions of influencers and the slow ‘heavyness’ of infrastructure projects. It would indeterminately ‘serialise’ the funding and promotion of the public investments, and invite a revised aesthetic practice from the influencers that is more anchored by public interest.
Example:
A tax haven object (THO) is a project of long-term public interest that requires ongoing government funding to be built and/or operate. This may include a particle accelerator, a solar energy farm, a university building, a retirement home. A THO must have a defined singularity and continuity as a project rather than a campus, zone or district.
The protocols, or conditions of the THO are as follows:
- The THO may be used as a tax base* for ‘social media influencer’** activity only
- The taxation of the influencer will be bound by the conditions and terms of the THO***
- The influencer must in return promote the THO project in their channels as required by the THO****
* The disposition of both corporate tax havens and large infrastructure projects is often towards the production of financial opacity and special interest at the long-term expense of their governmental host treasuries. These dispositions are further absconded by their static advertising and promo videos that suggest a pure ideal of freedom or public interest.
** Social media influencers, many of who are location independent, are currently taxed under their country of residence. Their media is overtly promotional (rather than surreptitiously promotional in the case of TV, for example). The lack of professional probity and regulation of ‘the influencing industry’ make it vulnerable to being weapon-ised, and its suburban latency pushes for further privatisation and commercialisation of urban space, whilst being a heavier drain on public assets through its operations (e.g. tourism, de-centralised city services).
*** Competition is expected amongst THOs to attract influencers, where a heterogeneous field of promotion/incentive can develop. The THO protocol creates a 1:1 interplay of mutual sponsorship and popular visibility at the scale of both project and influencer (both of which can be thought of as public objects).
PAUL VAN HERK 