Book Review: What Do We Know and What Should We Do About Tax Justice
By Abdul Muheet Chowdhary
The book What Do We Know and What Should We Do About Tax Justice, written by Alex Cobham, CEO of the Tax Justice Network, is an excellent summary of the state of knowledge on tax justice and provides a clear direction on what should be the goals of the tax justice movement going forward.
Mali’s Mining Shake-Up: Tax audits reveal massive revenue loss and lead to stringent policy changes
By Anne Wanyagathi Maina and Kolawole Omole
Mali’s recent regulatory changes and tax dispute settlements highlight the government’s determination to secure a greater share of economic benefits from its natural resources. Mali’s approach presents a lesson for resource-rich developing countries. The article explores the country’s mining tax reforms, ensuing tax disputes and settlements, and implications on revenue mobilization.
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.
Determining the Upper Bound of the Scoping Criteria for Amount B in the OECD/G20 Two-Pillar Solution: A Policy Guide for Developing Jurisdictions
By Chetan Rao, Ruchika Sharma, and Dr. Vijit Patel
Amount B, a component of the OECD/G20 Two-Pillar Solution, has been designed to simplify transfer pricing for baseline distribution activities. With the aim of developing a practical policy guide for developing jurisdictions to fine tune the quantitative scoping criterion under Amount B, i.e., “annual operating expense to annual net revenue” ratio, this paper critically analyses various aspects of this criterion. The upper bound of this ratio is purported to help jurisdictions in identifying baseline distributors. It is currently set as a flexible range from 20% to 30%, with the choice available to each adopting jurisdiction deciding the exact point in the range for implementation of Amount B within its jurisdiction. Given the lack of any data-backed rationale in the Amount B report for development of this range, the authors suggest that the upper bound range might have been politically negotiated. For this very reason, developing countries need to tread carefully while setting the upper-bound and consider both its tax as well as policy implications. Through an empirical analysis of independent distributors in India, the paper highlights the link between the upper bound, functionality, and profitability, illustrating how these metrics impact developing countries with lower asset and expense intensities. The findings suggest that setting the upper bound at the higher end of the range could unintentionally bring above-baseline distributors into scope, thus foregoing long-term taxing rights for developing jurisdictions. Through this analysis, the paper offers practical insights and recommendations for jurisdictions, especially developing ones, for setting this upper bound to protect their taxing rights and minimize risks of misclassification of above-baseline distributors as baseline.
The Implications of Treaty Restrictions of Taxing Rights on Services, Especially for Developing Countries
By Faith Amaro, Veronica Grondona, Sol Picciotto
Taxation of cross-border services has been identified as a high priority issue in the United Nations (UN) negotiations to establish a new global framework for tax. This paper analyses the defects of international tax rules as applied to services, and their exploitation by multinational enterprises (MNEs), focusing on the impact on developing countries. Services have become increasingly important for economic development, but international tax rules favouring delivery by non-residents act as a disincentive to the growth of local services providers, particularly disadvantaging developing countries which are mainly hosts to MNEs. We analyse the restrictions on source taxation of services in tax treaties, particularly those based on the model of the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and show that their spread has been accompanied by a widening deficit in services trade of developing countries, while the weakening of their attempts to protect their tax base through withholding taxes has resulted in increasing losses of tax revenue. The paper combines detailed qualitative analyses of tax treaties with quantitative estimates of their effects on trade and tax revenues for services of five developing countries: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya and Nigeria. Our analysis suggests that a new approach is needed for taxation of services, breaking with the residence-source dichotomy, and adopting formulary apportionment. This could be based on the standards agreed in the Two Pillar Solution of the OECD/Group of Twenty (G20) project on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) and developed now through the UN.
Statement by the South Centre on the Adoption of the Draft Terms of Reference for a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation
August 2024
The South Centre welcomes the adoption of the draft Terms of Reference for a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (UNFCITC). The UNFCITC can establish a fair and equitable international tax system for developing countries.
South Centre Inputs on “Zero Draft Terms of Reference for a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation”
20 June 2024
The South Centre submits the following inputs to the Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee to Draft Terms of Reference for a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation.
A Toss Up? Comparing Tax Revenues from the Amount A and Digital Service Tax Regimes for Developing Countries
By Vladimir Starkov and Alexis Jin
In this paper, we attempt to estimate the tax revenues to be gained by the Member States of ATAF, WATAF, AU and the South Centre under the Amount A and an alternative stylized DST taxation regime. Our research demonstrates that the comparative revenue effects of the Amount A and DST taxation regimes largely depend on (a) the mix of relevant domestic economic activities at market jurisdictions (i.e., revenues sourced to the country as a market jurisdiction under Amount A and the level of revenues from automated digital services generated in the country), (b) design details of the DST regime such as the DST tax rate and the nature of activities to be taxed and (c) the relief from double taxation, if any, countries will grant to domestic and foreign taxpayers under DST. This paper contains analysis relying on sources of information available to private sector researchers and it does not involve review of any information that individual taxpayers provided to tax authorities.
The Design of a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation
By Sol Picciotto
The creation of a UN-led framework for international tax cooperation is an opportunity for an institutional and conceptual reset, to re-establish a global perspective that has been disrupted by the assumption of an increasingly dominant role in international tax by the OECD. The OECD’s expansive proselytisation of its approach, aiming to encourage foreign investment by restricting taxation of income at source where it derives, has paradoxically taken place in counterpoint with growing concerns about the evident dysfunctionality of that approach. The current process should learn from the past to design a global framework fit for the future, by embodying the aims and general principles that have come to be recognised especially in the recent period as essential guideposts for effective international tax reform.
G-24 South Centre Call For Papers: Comparing tax revenues to be generated from United Nations and OECD Subject To Tax Rule (STTR)
Deadline – 1 July 2024
The G-24 and the South Centre have launched this Call For Papers providing funding for studies which can produce country level comparative revenue estimates of the UN and OECD STTR on the 65 combined Member States of the South Centre (available here) and the G-24 (available here). The data should clearly provide how much revenue each Member State will get if they opt for the UN STTR vs the OECD STTR. The objective is to help Member States of both intergovernmental organizations make informed decisions on adopting the version of the STTR which is more beneficial to them.
Member States of the G-24 and the South Centre are advised to wait till the publication of the results of this study before taking a decision on whether or not to sign the OECD STTR MLI.
2023 ANNUAL REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT BY THE SOUTH CENTRE TAX INITIATIVE
The South Centre’s interventions have had a significant impact in helping developing countries bring about major reforms to the international tax system in 2023. Key achievements include the passage of the historic resolution in the United Nations General Assembly for the initiation of a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, the successful end of a twenty year long negotiation in the UN Tax Committee for taxing computer software, the passage of an enhanced version of the Subject to Tax Rule in the UN Tax Committee for ending non-taxation in tax treaties, country level revenue estimates on the OECD digital tax solution vs Digital Services Taxes for the 85 combined Member States of the South Centre and the African Union, and extensive in-country capacity building for several South Centre Member States for taxing the digital economy and tax treaty negotiations.
THE ROLE OF NET WEALTH TAXES IN PROMOTING EQUALITY AND FINANCING THE SDGS
South Centre Statement to ECOSOC Special Meeting on International Cooperation in Tax Matters
18th March 2024
The South Centre, an intergovernmental think tank of developing countries with 55 Member States from Asia, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, is pleased to share its views on the role of net wealth taxes in promoting equality and financing the SDGs.
