Registration open for annual conference #tjn18, Lima

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Registration is now open for our annual conference, which this year will be held in Lima on 13-14 June. Sign up now, and we’ll see you there! Full details including the programme are below, along with contacts for any questions or comments.

The 2018 conference of the Tax Justice Network, part of an annual series dating back to 2003 and co-organised with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) and Latindadd, will showcase cutting-edge research from the region and beyond, bringing together researchers, academics, journalists, policy staff of civil society organisations, consultants and professionals, elected politicians and their researchers, government and international organisation officials. The purpose is to facilitate research, open-minded debate and discussion, and to generate ideas and proposals to inform and shape political initiatives and mobilisation. The conference will be held in Spanish, Portuguese and English, with full translation.

Conference Theme

Tax is a crucial tool to challenge inequalities, redistributing incomes and raising revenue for important public spending. But the sovereignty of states to pursue such policies is comprehensively undermined by the ability of elites and multinational companies to hide or otherwise remove their income from the tax net; through broader patterns of corruption; and by their lobbying against policies for direct taxation of income, profits and capital gains. And while Latin America is widely recognised as having had a period of success in reversing the growth of income inequality in recent years, that trend may be weakening – and many countries in the region continue to exhibit both high inequality and only weak redistribution.

The Paradise Papers have confirmed once against how wealthy individuals hide their assets and income streams in financial secrecy jurisdictions (‘tax havens’), and how multinational companies are able to reduce their tax liability in a range of largely hidden ways, exploiting the gaping flaws in international tax rules to shift their income abroad, and also playing governments against each other to obtain tax breaks. Governments may also be unwilling or unable to impose genuinely progressive tax measures in the face of elite resistance.

But the world is changing. The failure of the OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project to curtail multinational tax avoidance has led to greater pressure for real changes in the rules, with countries in the region responding in a range of ways – with some major economies seeking OECD entry, and others such as Ecuador putting their full focus on UN options for a more fully representative forum to consider rule changes. Meanwhile, efforts to end secret ownership have made significant progress – although most non-OECD countries remain excluded from arrangements for the automatic exchange of financial information, and public registers of beneficial ownership for companies, trusts and foundations are not yet widespread. Argentina, chairing the G20 in 2018, has an opportunity to show dynamic leadership in the name of inclusion.

These critical policy challenges must be addressed at national, regional and global levels, if progress is to be made against the powerful inequalities that undermine human rights – including importantly those of women and marginalised ethnolinguistic groups.

Provisional Programme

DAY ONE – 13 June 2018

08h30 – 09h00 Registration and coffee

09h00 – 09h30 Plenary: Welcome and introductions: Desigualdad y injusticia fiscal #tjn18

09h30 – 11h00 Plenary session One: Inequalities and tax justice

Chair: Dereje Alemayehu (Global Alliance for Tax Justice, Ethiopia)

• Kathleen Lahey (Queen’s U, Canada and TJN, presenting a UNWomen report) – Gender, Taxation, and Equality in Developing Countries: Key Issues and Recommendations
• Antonio David Cattani (Instituto Justica Fiscal, Brazil) – Tributar a la riqueza, hacer justicia fiscal
• Vanessa van den Boogaard (University of Toronto, Canada/International Centre for Tax and Development, UK) – Informal taxation and inequality: Case studies from Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Somalia

11h00 – 11h30 Coffee

11h30 – 13h00

Parallel Session 2A: Tax justice: Theoretical inquiries

Chair: TBD

• Verónica Serafini (DECIDAMOS, Paraguay) – Los desafíos de la política fiscal a la luz de los derechos de las mujeres y la desigualdad de género
• Christian von Haldenwang (DIE, Germany) – International tax justice and the principle of fiscal equivalence
• Patricia Lampreave (Universidad Complutense, Spain) – Tackle harmful tax competition, a compromise of the States with international organizations

Parallel Session 2B: Tax breaks and the race to the bottom

Chair: TBD

• Rodolfo Bejarano(LATINDADD, Peru) – Privilegios a cambio de nada: Incentivos fiscales a la inversión en america Latina
• Laure Gnassou (France) – Tax Base Erosion: A Cautionary Tale of the DR Congo
• Paolo de Renzio (IBP, USA)- Tax expenditures and their impact on inequality in Latin America: An overview of findings from country case studies

13h00 – 14h00 Lunch

14h00 – 15h30

Parallel session 3A: Tax justice challenges of inequalities

Chair: TBD

• Vanessa Jorda (U. Cantabria, Spain) & *Miguel Niño-Zarazúa (UNU-WIDER, Finland) – Global inequality: how large is the effect of top incomes?
• Jill Juma (CUTS International, India) – Integrating women micro and small enterprises (MSEs) through a fair tax justice system: The case of eastern Africa and India
• Gemma Patón (U.Castilla La Mancha, Spain)- Retos fiscales de la economia digital en américa Latina

Parallel Session 3B: Hiding individual wealth: Old and new challenges

Chair: TBD

• Andres Arauz (UNAM, Mexico; former Minister of Knowledge of Ecuador) – Fuga de capitales institucionalizada: las subsidiarias offshore de los bancos ecuatorianos
• Fabio Bothner, Lukas Hakelberg & Thomas Rixen (U.Bamberg, Germany)- Their hands untied but still imprisoned?: National tax policy under the automatic exchange of information
• Riva Jalipa (TJN-A/SOAS, UK)- Cryptocurrencies and tax justice

15h30 – 16h00 Tea break

16h00 – 17h00 Plenary session Four: Tax justice and women’s rights

Chair: TBD

• Rachel Sharpe (ActionAid UK) and Margaret Brew-Ward (ActionAid Ghana) –Making tax work for women in developing countries
• Frank Kalizinje (Malawi Revenue Authority) –Tax policy and female labour force participation in Malawi: Implications for tax justice and women’s rights

DAY TWO – 14 June 2018

08h50 – 09h00 Welcome to day two

09h00 – 10h30 Plenary session Five: Taxation and gender (Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Bolivia and Venezuela)

Chair: Maria Valdes Fernandes (FES, Colombia)

• Irma Yaneth Lima Pantaleón, Sofía Farfán de Rodriguez ( Superintendencia de Administración Tributaria [SAT] – Guatemala) –Impuestos y género, iniciativa desde las administraciones tributarias
• Maria Dolores Almeida (Consultora Independiente, Ex Viceministra de Finanzas del Ecuador) – Estado de la tributación para la equidad de género en Ecuador
• Esther Pineda (Consultora Independiente en temas de género y equidad)-Perspectiva de género y justicia tributaria: una aproximación al caso venezolano

10h30 – 11h00 Coffee

11h00 – 12h30

Parallel session 6A: El aporte fiscal de la minería y comentarios sobre la erosión de la base gravable y traslado de beneficios en la industria extractiva.

Chair: Victor Garzon (GIZ, Germany)

• Panel speakers to be confirmed

Parallel Session 6B: Trade and tax injustices

Chair: TBD

• Christine Carton & *Sadri Slim (El Colegio de Chihuahua, Mexico) – Trade misinvoicing in OECD countries: What can we learn from bilateral trade intensity indices?
• Swati Verma (Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, India)- Intangible payments and tax avoidance: Transfer pricing appraisal challenges in Indian context

12h30 – 14h00 Lunch

14h00 – 15h00

Parallel Session 7A: Money-laundering: Spotlight on Kenya

Chair: TBD

• Nancy Chepkorir Kiget (Kenya) –Financial institutions’ money laundering affecting tax base in Kenya
• Ann Ng’ang’a & Rodgers Koima (Kenya)- Addressing money laundering in developing economies: Lessons from the Kenyan experience

Parallel Session 7B: Illicit financial flows: Estimates and case studies

Chair: TBD

• William Davis (UN ECA, Ethiopia) – Illicit financial flows and structural transformation in Africa
• Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC) – The Independent Working Group (IWG) on Illicit Financial Flows

15h00 – 15h30 Coffee break

15h30 – 17h00 Plenary session Eight: International analyses of tax justice

Chair: TBD

• Inês Sofia de Oliveira & Haylea Campbell (RUSI Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies, UK) –The international struggle against financial secrecy: An analysis of actors, incentives, and effectiveness
• Miroslav Palansky (Charles U Prague, Czech Rep), Petr Jansky (Charles U Prague, Czech Rep) & Markus Meinzer (TJN, Germany) – Secrecy jurisdictions’ spheres of influence and international cooperation against tax avoidance: The Bilateral Financial Secrecy Index
• Jahanzeb Akhtar and Verónica Grondona (European Parliament) –The evolution of tax haven lists

17h00 – 17h30 Closing Session: Reflections and looking ahead

How can I contact the organiser with any questions?

Please contact Fariya Mohiuddin- [email protected] with any questions, comments, and concerns that you may have. If you would like to communicate in Spanish, please direct your questions to Claudia Kremer – [email protected]. 

Registration details

English: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/paradise-lost-inequality-and-tax-injustice-eng-registration-tickets-43888237901

Spanish: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/paraiso-perdidodesigualdad-e-injusticia-fiscal-esp-registro-tickets-44017360109