Caribbean Economist Calls for Caribbean Support of U.N. Tax Convention

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The United Nations will from next week begin negotiations on an international tax convention which the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists say will ‘tackle inequality and tax abuse”. Nigeria has taken the lead calling for a legally binding UN Tax Convention.

The resolution, filed on Oct. 11 on behalf of African member states, is the latest development in an ongoing tussle between the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development over which organization should shape the global tax agenda.

A U.N. tax convention would “strengthen international tax cooperation and make it fully inclusive and more effective,” the resolution said, echoing the wording of an earlier report by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, which criticized the OECD for ignoring the needs of developing countries.

Caribbean economist Marla Dukharan has called on Caribbean governments to support the UN Tax Convention as to do otherwise “only proves that we are not yet ready for decolonization, that we are unable to free ourselves of the puppeteer’s strings, or to think for ourselves and vote independently”.

Ms. Dukharan has called “on the Governments of St. Kitts and Nevis and Suriname who have for whatever reason opposed the UN Tax Convention, to please reconsider their rather regressive position. I also call on the Governments of Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Jamaica and Haiti to indicate their support for the UN Tax Convention”.

Ms. Dukharan goes on to say that “to support the OECD, is to implicitly support the EU and its indefensible, racist, and hypocritical blacklisting of non-white former colonies, especially in the Caribbean and Pacific Islands.

St. Lucia has stated no public position but is deemed ‘largely compliant by the OECD.

Read the full statement from Marla Dukharan here.

  Africa, Caribbean, Tax, UN