taxation

The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed and worsened the depth of inequality in West Africa. It has pushed millions into poverty. However, the pandemic offers West African governments a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest heavily in inequality-busting policies by boosting public spending, making tax systems more progressive, and tackling joblessness and precarious work.

Responding to the announcement today that the G7 will back a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15 percent, Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of Oxfam International, said: “Fixing a global minimum corporate tax rate of just 15 percent is far too low. It will do little to end the damaging race to the bottom on corporate tax and curtail the widespread use of tax havens."

The coronavirus crisis has exposed our collective frailty and the inability of our deeply unequal economy to work for all. Yet it has also shown us the vital importance of government action to protect our health and livelihoods, and to create a more equal and sustainable world. 

Domestic Revenue Mobilisation is key for governments to fund their own development goals, finance gender-responsive public services and to reduce economic, social and gender inequalities. While the EU is leading the way when it comes to the quantity of aid it provides towards domestic revenue mobilisation, there is significant room for improvement when it comes to the quality of the aid provided.

Economic inequality is based on a flawed and sexist economic system that values the wealth of the privileged few, mostly men, more than the billions of hours of the most essential work – the unpaid and underpaid care work done primarily by women and girls around the world. This has to change.

As Vietnam graduates from IDA, the World Bank’s concessional finance window, there will be a major change in the types of development finance the country can access. Oxfam is concerned about what this changing financial landscape might mean for Vietnam’s fight against poverty, inequality, and gender inequality.

Under this new proposal, companies’ profits and their ability to shift them offshore will barely be affected and consequently developing countries will only see a very small increase in their corporate tax revenues. 

This report, co-written by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and Oxfam, seeks to show why it is urgent that the effectiveness of tax incentives is reviewed and assessed, in order to guarantee the rights of citizens. 

In this briefing, Oxfam sets out the seven key issues the G7 must act on if the Biarritz Summit is to deliver more than just warm words on fighting inequality.

The report seeks to demonstrate the gendered implications of how tax systems are designed, focusing on identifying aspects of taxation that can damage women's economic autonomy. It also offers recommendations for transforming tax policy as an instrument to help combat some of the inequalities affecting women.