African low income countries demand fair share of tax

The press release. Click to enlarge.

From Tove Maria Ryding at Eurodad, via email:

At a media event in Washington last week, finance ministers of francophone low-income countries (DRC and Cameroon) demanded a “fair share of global tax revenues” and a “high-level meeting under UN auspices”.

The press release from the event highlighted that:

“[Ministers] require a more fundamental reform of the international tax system in order to get their fair share of global tax revenues:

1) the global tax system is stacked in favour of paying taxes in the headquarters countries of transnational companies, rather than in the countries where raw materials are produced. International tax and investment treaties need to be revised to give preference to paying tax in “source” countries.

2) current G20/OECD initiatives against tax avoidance and evasion are not tackling the key practices which most reduce LIC revenues. LICs need help to revise their tax codes to eliminate exemptions renegotiate bilateral tax and investment treaties; and resist a “race to the bottom” through harmful competition to reduce direct taxes.

(…)

4) The cause of these problems is the lack of decision-making power for LICs in global tax discussions. Consultation by the IMF and OECD cannot be sufficient: LICs need an equal seat at the table, which would best be provided by a high-level meeting under UN auspices, as part of the Financing for Development conference in July 2015.”

Finally, it seems there’s a new “US-Africa high-level working group” to develop a plan of action to address illicit financial flows and corruption. The story says:

“There are two sides to this coin. If there were no facilitators on their side, the miscreants on our side would not have succour,” said Liberia’s Foreign Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan in an interview. “The G7 needs to walk the talk on this and deal with tax havens and opportunities created on their side of the divide that make it possible for those on the other side to loot the continent,” he said.”

TJN adds: note that the press release also urges a financial transaction tax.