Tax Justice Norges innlegg i FN

Andre forhandlingsrunde i ad hoc komiteen for utformingen av Terms of Reference for en skattekonvensjon i FN er i gang, og Andreas er i New York. Under fjerde møtedag fikk Andreas mulighet til å holde et innlegg på vegne av Tax Justice Norge.

Transkripsjon av innlegget:

Thank you chair,

I would first like to speak to the importance of a clear high level commitment to intergovernmental cooperation on tax.

And secondly by clearly reminding global north countries that they themselves suffer the greatest revenue loss in actual terms, due to aggressive tax planning and profit shifting, with today's ineffective and non inclusive international tax cooperation.

The global south countries are however the ones that suffer the greatest relative revenue loss in relation to their GDP. Many global south countries lose as much as 50% of their health budget. (which actually makes this a matter of life or death)

Today's ineffective and non inclusive international tax cooperation, is mainly benefitting only a relatively few, very large and very profitable multinational corporations, financial institutions.

And we must remember that these multinational corporations and financial institutions do not really answer to any sovereign nation. They can, and historically will, aggressively shift profit and tax liability to where, at the moment, there is the lowest tax, least regulations and least transparency/most secrecy. They will not be there for the long run.

The current tax abuse also benefits the relatively few jurisdictions which have chosen to have the lowest tax, least regulations and least transparency and often very large financial services sectors.

The rest of us are losing.

The current international tax cooperation therefore is one of the main driving forces of the extreme inequality we have today.

Overall, since Global North countries lose more money to tax abuse in actual terms than Global South, it is in the Global North's own interest, to proactively work for an open, universally inclusive, transparent and effective tax cooperation through a UN framework convention. And to have taxation of MNEs and cross border transactions as central topics for high level commitments.

And if all sovereign states are not influenced too much by their own Multinationals, financial institutions and non inclusive tax organisations, this is clearly visible.

Thank you very much.

–

Du kan også se innlegget på UN-WebTV, ca. 01:03:50.