Countries are voting today on a UN resolution that could deliver the biggest shakeup to the global tax system in history.
The resolution, tabled by the Africa Group, seeks to begin the process of establishing a UN framework convention on tax, first by creating an inclusive, intergovernmental committee to set the terms of reference for negotiations by August 2024, which would then be carried forward into the final stage of establishing the convention. A UN tax convention will ultimately move decision-making on global tax rules from the OECD, a small club of rich countries where these have sat for the past 60 years, to the UN.
The vote will take place at today’s session of the Second Committee of the Un General Assembly, which will be held at 10am ET. The resolution is the third item on the session’s schedule.
The session will be public livestreamed here.
A press conference will be held after the vote by the Global Alliance for Tax Justice at 12pm ET today.
It is expected, although not certain, that the resolution will pass by majority, largely for the G77 countries. Although adopting the resolution by consensus (following last year’s consensus on moving forward intergovernmental discussions on this issue) would be ideal in terms of collective commitment, the US, UK and EU have indicated their opposition to the resolution in recent weeks, particularly any version of the resolution that opens the door to negotiating a legally-binding instrument. For this reason, the resolution is expected to go to a split vote.
The UK has tabled a last-minute amendment ahead of the vote that removes all mentions of a convention from the resolution. More amendments may be proposed ahead of today’s vote, and each must be voted before the final vote on the (possibly amended) resolution.
We have published an analysis here on how today’s vote may go, what the implications for the future are and what the UK’s amendment may mean.
We are also running a live blog sharing updates on the vote.
The Tax Justice Network will publish a statement shortly after the vote.
For any media enquiries, please contact [email protected] or call +447562403078.
Links:
- UN vote livestream
- Full text of Africa Group’s resolution
- Post-vote press conference
- Analysis on vote
- Live-blog for updates on vote
- Background information on vote
- Letter from leading economists supporting UN resolution
- Letter signed by 200+ NGOS and unions supporting UN resolution