UN group launches blueprint to tackle global tax abuse
A group of world leaders have launched a blueprint for a United Nations (UN) tax convention and a new intergovernmental tax body under the UN to radically tackle rampant global tax abuse.
The blueprint was prepared by the UN High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity.
This group was launched in March 2020 to study the impact of tax abuse, money laundering and illicit financial flows on the ability of states to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
Currently, global tax abuse is estimated to cost countries over $427 billion in lost revenues to tax havens every year.
The BVI, The Cayman Islands and the United Kingdom are currently considered among the most notorious tax havens which help the world’s wealthy to hide their money.
Last year, a new study published by the Tax Justice Network showed that annually, the BVI accounts for some 3.81 percent of global tax loss.
This means the BVI accounts for almost four percent of the money that other countries around the world would have collected as tax from corporations and used to fund public services.
In the meantime, the report, from the high-level UN panel, identifies tax abuse and other illicit financial flows as a systemic problem that “robs billions of a better future” and that can only be addressed by “nothing less than a transformation of the global financial system” led at the United Nations.
The findings of the high-level panel’s report will be presented to UN member states by current and former heads of state from a number of countries, including Lithuania, Niger, Norway and Pakistan, signalling the strongest levels of global support to date for efforts to bring international taxation under the mandate of the UN.
This group was launched in March 2020 to study the impact of tax abuse, money laundering and illicit financial flows on the ability of states to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
Currently, global tax abuse is estimated to cost countries over $427 billion in lost revenues to tax havens every year.
The BVI, The Cayman Islands and the United Kingdom are currently considered among the most notorious tax havens which help the world’s wealthy to hide their money.
Last year, a new study published by the Tax Justice Network showed that annually, the BVI accounts for some 3.81 percent of global tax loss.
This means the BVI accounts for almost four percent of the money that other countries around the world would have collected as tax from corporations and used to fund public services.
In the meantime, the report, from the high-level UN panel, identifies tax abuse and other illicit financial flows as a systemic problem that “robs billions of a better future” and that can only be addressed by “nothing less than a transformation of the global financial system” led at the United Nations.
The findings of the high-level panel’s report will be presented to UN member states by current and former heads of state from a number of countries, including Lithuania, Niger, Norway and Pakistan, signalling the strongest levels of global support to date for efforts to bring international taxation under the mandate of the UN.
