Currently, a third of the world’s countries are not at the table when global tax rules get decided. It’s time for the United Nations to take the lead, so all countries can participate on an equal footing.
Click here to learn more about the proposal for a UN Tax Convention.
Participants to the Webinar – Inequalities, Public Services and Tax Justice made the sign for equality to cap off a two-hour session that brought together organizations and communities in the frontlines of fighting inequalities and most affected by failing public services and loss of public revenues due to flawed fiscal and tax systems. Over 110 attended the webinar, and learnt about how to strengthen campaigns on tax and fiscal justice especially in light of developments in global, regional, and domestic policy-making.
The webinar aimed to:
• Surface some of the most pressing issues faced by marginalised sectors and communities in the context of failing public services and deepening inequalities;
• Highlight the systemic barriers to making public services accessible and responsive to people’s needs and rights, drawing the links to gaps and flaws in fiscal and tax systems;
• Discuss and collectively analyze key developments in national, regional, and global policy fronts that impact inequalities and people’s access and right to public services; and,
• Facilitate sharing of strategies for advancing tax and fiscal justice agenda, with a focus on public services.
Today, the G7 Finance Ministers issued a communiqué announcing their joint agreement on new global tax rules, including a global minimum corporate tax rate and a special new tax on some of the world’s largest corporations.
In response to the G7 agreement, Tove Maria Ryding, Tax Coordinator at the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad), said:
“We have three overall concerns with the new global tax measures that the G7 countries are outlining. In essence, they are not fair, they are not ambitious, and there is a high risk they will lead to a more complex and ineffective tax system.”
Ryding also expressed strong concerns about the way the G7 is trying to decide what the global corporate tax system should look like.
“The negotiation about new global tax rules belongs at the United Nations, where all countries can participate on an equal footing, rather than at a small rich countries’ club like the G7.”
During the webinar speakers discussed perspectives and demands of movements in the global South for debt cancelation and debt relief, as well as for tax justice to respond to multiple crises and rising inequalities, looking at both cases of national tax agendas and the global tax architecture.
