UN Tax Committee meeting: dissenters absent?

We have often commented on the fact that the OECD, a club of rich countries, dominates rule-making on international tax while its much broader (and more legitimate) counterpart (perhaps one might say ‘competitor’), the UN Tax Committee, has been left in the shade. Not only has the OECD (and its member states) ensured that the UN Tax Committee is under-resourced and under-supported; it has also sought to intervene powerfully in the UNTC’s decision-making processes to make sure it doesn’t deviate from the OECD’s jealously guarded “international consensus” on international tax.

They’ve just had a meeting in Geneva, which Martin Hearson has analysed here.

We’re going to highlight – perhaps a tad mischievously – one short paragraph from his report, as a teaser to invite you to read on.

“Unusually, the record of the discussion identifies the dissenters as the Chinese, Brazilian and Indian members of the committee. It is worth noting that none of these three individuals are still members of the committee.”

A key point being, perhaps, that international tax rules are increasingly being contested, as the rest of the (in parts somewhat technical) blog shows.

Beyond Hearson’s blog, we are hearing that the pressures from the OECD and certain member states remain high.