Abdul Muheet Chowdhary

Tax Cooperation Policy Brief No. 40, 19 December 2024

Towards a UN Protocol for Taxing Cross-Border Services in a Digitalized Economy

By Abdul Muheet Chowdhary, Anne Wanyagathi Maina and Kolawole Omole

This Policy Brief offers a way forward on the United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation’s (UNFCITC) protocol for taxing cross-border services in a digitalized economy. Such a protocol can provide a way to standardize and harmonize the existing plethora of widely varying Digital Services Taxes (DSTs), which can reduce political tension between the Global North and South, ease compliance costs and uncertainties for business, while providing a basis for the elimination of double taxation. The revenue generated can help bridge the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) financing gap and for the realization of human rights in the Global South. The Group of Twenty (G20) can act as a forum where key countries in the North and South can hammer out the architecture of the protocol for taxing cross-border services.

(more…)

Policy Brief 133, 2 December 2024

South Centre Inputs to FfD4 Elements Paper – Debt Sustainability, Business and Finance, Taxation

By Yuefen Li, Danish, Abdul Muheet Chowdhary

The upcoming 4th conference on financing for development (FfD4) represents an important opportunity for developing countries to achieve a deep reform of the international financial architecture so that it meets their sustainable development needs and enhances the scale of development finance to fully realize the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Based on the inputs provided by the South Centre to the FfD4 process, this policy brief highlights some of the key messages, problem statements and policy solutions in the areas of sovereign debt, private business and finance, and international tax cooperation that should be considered by the countries of the global South in their deliberations towards achieving ambitious outcomes at FfD4.

(more…)

SouthViews No. 274, 30 August 2024

Review: Taxation and Inequality in Latin America: New Perspectives on Political Economy and Tax Regimes (2023)

By Abdul Muheet Chowdhary

The volume Taxation and Inequality in Latin America: New Perspectives on Political Economy and Tax Regimes is an insightful collection of articles about the patterns of inequality in Latin America and detailing the nature of tax avoidance and evasion in the region, with lessons from political attempts to bring about progressive reforms and tax considerations for policymakers about the future of the region’s development.

(more…)

SouthViews No. 270, 26 July 2024

Honduras’ Tax Justice Law: Increasing tax collection to achieve the SDGs without increasing tax rates

By Abdul Muheet Chowdhary, Kuldeep Sharma and Kolawole Omole

In April 2023, the government of Honduras submitted a tax reform bill called the “Tax Justice Law” to the National Congress through which it intends to reform the Honduran tax system with potential for improved revenue collection, that too, without introducing new taxes or increasing tax rates. The law aims at Constitutional recognition that tax collection must be progressive, change the principle of taxation from territorial to worldwide taxation of income, introduce Ultimate Beneficial Ownership requirements that inter alia aim to repeal bearer shares, facilitate exchange of information with other jurisdictions, eliminate banking secrecy for tax purposes, implement credit method in domestic legislation to eliminate double taxation, amend the Constitution so as to limit tax exemptions to a maximum period of 10 years, restore transfer pricing audits to check abusive claim of tax incentives and eliminate the possibility of forgiving tax debts. The provisions contained in the Tax Justice Law are timely and welcome, particularly in light of the Global Minimum Tax. They can improve government revenues, reduce public debt and create the fiscal space for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

(more…)