Tax Reform

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.

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SC Statement on Adoption of Draft TORs for UN Tax Convention, August 2024

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.

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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.

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SC Inputs – 0 Draft TORs for UN FCITC, 20 June 2024

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.

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Tax Cooperation Policy Brief No. 38, 15 May 2024

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.

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G-24 South Centre Call for Papers

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.

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SCTI Annual Report 2023

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.

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SC Statement to ECOSOC Special Meeting – Net Wealth Taxes, 18 March 2024

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.

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SC Statement to ECOSOC Special Meeting – Tax Cooperation at UN, 18 March 2024

PROMOTING INCLUSIVE AND EFFECTIVE TAX COOPERATION AT THE UN

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, congratulates the Chair and Members of the Bureau on their appointment to the all-important ad hoc committee to elaborate the Terms of Reference (ToR) for a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (“UN Tax Convention”). The Ad Hoc Committee has a genuinely historic mandate as it has to design the architecture of the long-standing demand of the developing world for a UN Tax Body…

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South Centre Inputs – UN Tax Convention, 15 March 2024

South Centre Inputs on “Terms of Reference for a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation”

15 March 2024

The South Centre provided its inputs to the work of the United Nations’ Ad Hoc Committee to draft Terms of Reference for a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation. The Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee invited stakeholders to provide inputs to inform the work to be undertaken by the Committee.

The Terms of Reference are the foundation of the architecture of the Convention, which has the potential to fundamentally reform the international tax system to make it fairer for developing countries.

The Ad Hoc Committee was constituted consequent upon the historic resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 22nd December 2023. The United Nations Framework Convention aims to strengthen international tax cooperation and make it fully inclusive and more effective.

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Research Paper 189, 21 December 2023

Status of Permanent Establishments under GloBE Rules

By Kuldeep Sharma

The objective of this Research Paper is to comprehensively identify and analyse all Permanent Establishment (PE) related provisions under the global minimum tax of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which is implemented through the Global Anti Base Erosion (GloBE) Model Rules. The analysis has led to the conclusion that PEs hold a significant position and facilitate application of GloBE Rules.

The GloBE Rules have introduced certain new facets involving application of PE provisions when there is no tax treaty; no Corporate Income Tax (CIT) in the source state, and have brought in the concept of stateless PEs. These newly-introduced facets have widened the scope of PEs to enable application of the GloBE Rules in specific situations which would otherwise have remained outside the ambit of taxation.

The paper concludes with an observation that the OECD’s Inclusive Framework is drafting the provisions of Amount A in a manner that results in consistency with GloBE Rules.  Likewise, acceptance of “deemed PE” for GloBE rules should be extended to Amount A as well.  By doing so, a tax nexus would be provided in source jurisdictions, which will allow profits attributable to Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) in a digitalized economy (without physical presence) getting taxed under domestic rules of these source (market) jurisdictions.  This would have been a much simpler solution and would have eliminated the complexity of Amount A rules to a large extent, as we see today.

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SC Statement – Conference on SSC in International Tax Matters, 27 November 2023

Opening Remarks by Dr. Carlos Correa, Executive Director of the South Centre, at the “Conference on South-South Cooperation in International Tax Matters: Don’t cede your taxing rights by signing a blank cheque”, co-organized with the Global Alliance for Tax Justice (27 November 2023)

The Conference is taking place at a time of severe challenges to the global economy and, particularly, for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Rising borrowing costs, tight global financial conditions and high debt burdens are constraining the fiscal space of many developing countries. These conditions make domestic resource mobilization through tax collection more important than ever. The taxation of foreign multinational corporations in the digital economy, in particular the Big Tech firms, has now become imperative both for providing much-needed revenues and for levelling the playing field of domestic companies in our countries.

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