UN tax convention

UN convention on tax can hold countries to legally binding, equitable standards on corporate taxation, financial transparency and tax justice.

UN conventions, like the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention against Torture, are international treaties to which countries can sign up and ratify to become bound to the treaty’s provisions by international law.

For most of the pasts 100 years, international tax rules have been primarily determined by the OECD, a small club of rich countries among which are some of the world’s biggest tax havens. This has brought about a global tax system that causes countries around the world to lose over $483 billion in tax every year to corporate tax abuse and private tax evasion. Analysis shows that OECD countries are responsible for enabling more than three-fourths of these tax losses. While the OECD has acknowledged that current international tax rules are not working, its recent efforts to deliver meaningful reform have failed under pressure from powerful member countries.

Establishing a UN tax convention would allow international tax rules to be determined through a genuinely representative process at the UN that reflects the needs of countries around the world, instead of the desires a rich and powerful few.