2024 Economic and Social Council Special Meeting on International Cooperation in Tax Matters
New York, 18 March 2024, 5:45 p.m.
ECOSOC Chamber
Your Excellency, Mr. Akan Rakhmetullin, Vice President of ECOSOC,
Excellencies,
Distinguished Delegates and Observers,
Dear Colleagues,
We have come to the close of the ECOSOC 2024 Special Meeting on International Cooperation in Tax Matters. I would like to thank all the Member States, panellists, keynote speakers and all stakeholders who attended and contributed their insights and expertise to the discussions.
We have heard about the pressing need to strengthen international tax cooperation, by making it fully inclusive and more effective. The international tax system needs to respect countries’ tax sovereignty and adjust to the way markets operate and business is done in our modern world. Establishing transparent international tax rules and processes that respond to the needs, priorities, and capacities of all countries is key. Moreover, a governance structure is needed for Member States to cooperate on international tax matters with inputs from other stakeholders.
Enhancing the legitimacy, stability, resilience, and fairness of international tax rules is in the common interest of all stakeholders. This will enable countries to better fight against tax evasion and avoidance and illicit financial flows, helping to fill some of the finance gaps that currently hamper progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
In today’s meeting, essential dialogue has taken place on the promotion of inclusive and effective international tax cooperation at the United Nations; and the role of net wealth taxes in promoting equality and financing the SDGs.
Your discussions have underscored the urgent need for agreed solutions to current tax challenges and highlighted the complexity of current international tax rules for many developing countries.
In this regard, you stressed the importance of simpler, easier-to-administer rules, the need for fair income allocation, and the practical value of a UN framework convention on international tax cooperation. Your recognition of the ongoing work of the ad hoc committee, tasked with drafting terms of reference for a UN framework convention is well noted.
Your discussion on the potential of wealth taxation as a tool for domestic resource mobilization was also welcome. Net wealth taxes are complex case but you have highlighted their potential to increase public revenues for investment in sustainable development and to increase equity and distributive justice. We can learn from the past and make better policy design choices, as well as leverage the advancement in technology.
As we depart this gathering, I look forward to active participation of all Member States and other stakeholders in the upcoming substantive sessions of the Ad Hoc Committee to Draft Terms of Reference for a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation. I also encourage you all to engage in the ongoing negotiations of the Pact for the Future and the preparations for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in 2025.
It is my sincere hope that these upcoming political milestones and processes can be a turning point. Through their outcomes, I am hopeful we can reverse the negative shocks of recent years, build trust, and spur long-term, robust sustainable development across the world.
Thank you.