> home > News

Civil society urges the OECD to develop a political agenda on tax justice and development

22 January 2010

In 2010, the world’s governments will review progress towards their commitments in the Millennium Development Goals. A successful outcome to these goals looks increasingly unlikely, demonstrating the limitations of overreliance on aid as the main source of funds to deliver these commitments.

The Doha Declaration on Financing for Development, and the outcome of the United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development, both recognised that the international community has a responsibility to help developing countries to raise their own revenue for development, including through enhanced cooperation to combat tax evasion.

As civil society organisations dedicated to international development and human rights, we therefore welcome efforts by the OECD to connect its work on development and on tax. The OECD’s considerable technical expertise in the matter of tax administration and cooperation makes it an important partner in work to help developing countries improve their domestic resource mobilisation.

Addressing poverty is an urgent matter and we believe domestic resource mobilisation plays a pivotal role in this process. In light of the gravity of the task in hand, our ambitions for the OECD for 2010 are as follows.

Development of a political agenda and the Global Forum on Tax Cooperation

That the OECD and its associated Forums can and should make a major contribution to the technical aspects of the domestic resource mobilisation agenda is clear, but, technical work is always embedded within a political agenda, whether explicit or implicit. Where developing countries are concerned, it is imperative that these countries be able to shape the political agenda – a process that cannot take place within the OECD, or within a forum associated with it.

This is especially the case for domestic resource mobilisation, because its potential extends beyond revenue generation in developing countries to questions of economic and political sovereignty and of government accountability. Furthermore, global taxation is an area in which the interests of OECD member states, of offshore financial centres, and of developing countries can conflict, for example when arbitrating between the principles of source and residence taxation, or when discussing the taxation of multinational companies.

We therefore pledge to continue our efforts to support the development and strengthening of civil society movements for tax justice in developing countries, and these movements’ advocacy towards their governments for greater engagement with DRM. We will also work to promote and strengthen global forums through which the interests of developing countries can truly be represented, including the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and its Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters, the International Tax Compact, and regional organisations such as the African Tax Administration Forum. It is to these organisations that we will look for the political agenda on tax and development that the OECD’s technical work should follow.

Dowload the full paper "A civil society agenda for the OECD":

A civil society agenda for the OECD : Kb

Letter to Angel Gurria 22 Jan 2010 : Kb