Event description
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Tax is our social superpower: a uniquely powerful tool by which we can organise themselves to live better lives, together. Tax can deliver the revenues for inclusive public services; the redistribution to curb deep, overlapping inequalities; the repricing of public goods and bads such as tobacco consumption; and effective political representation, based on a powerful social contract that underpins accountable government. Tax has the potential also to support international reparations, responding to the legacies of colonial violence and extraction, and the unequal distribution of the costs and benefits of exhausting our planet.
Since the formal launch of the Tax Justice Network at the UK Houses of Parliament in 2003, the movement has gone from strength to strength. From a tiny base, the first ten years saw a concerted challenge to damaging, dominant narratives – such as that paying less tax was ‘smart’ (rather than anti-social), or reflected a duty to shareholders (who in fact do better when companies are less aggressive in lowering their tax rates). The policy platform set out in the early years was taken from the margins of niche tax discussions to the centre of the global policy agenda, with the G20 countries mandating the OECD to deliver a series of key measures.
The second decade of the Tax Justice Network, coinciding with the first decade of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice – the umbrella body for mass mobilisation organisations across every region of the world – has seen stronger international growth and the further normalisation of positive narratives. Policy progress has been held back, however, by the inability of the OECD to act in the global interest or to withstand lobbying by those who benefit from tax abuse – leaving its reform efforts inevitably partial at best, and consistently skewed against non-members. The focus for tax justice has shifted towards recognising the crucial links with human rights, including women’s rights; and to the restructuring of the global architecture for decision-making, understood as vital if the global inequalities in taxing rights between countries are finally to be ended, and each countries’ peoples empowered to see the progressive taxation to support sustainable human well-being that is demanded by majorities worldwide.
This event will include the findings of an evaluation of the first 20 years of the Tax Justice Network, and look ahead to the next decade. What is the tax justice agenda in each region of the world, and internationally? Where will progress come? Which are the greatest threats, and how will the movement respond?
Watch the session recording here
Featuring contributions from Joseph Stiglitz, Attiya Waris and many more.