Tax Goals And The U.N. Finance Conference

Forbes

07-07-2025

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez arrives for a press briefing on the Seville Platform for Action ... More (SPA) initiative launched during the United Nations 4th International Conference on Financing and Development in Seville, on July 2, 2025. (Photo by CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP) (Photo by CRISTINA QUICLER/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images
There are a lot of expectations being placed on the U.N.'s Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development. The conference, which happens roughly once a decade, is an opportunity for U.N. countries to gather and discuss the most pressing development issues they are facing and troubleshoot solutions. It's a highlight of multilateralism, but this year's conference arrives in a fraught and tense environment for international cooperation, given that many countries seem to be increasingly looking inward rather than outward.
The crowning achievement of each financing for development conference is an outcome document that outlines the priorities, goals, and positions of the conference's attendees. This year's outcome document, the Sevilla Commitment, is supported by most of the U.N.'s member states — with the exception of the United States — and it makes a number of pronouncements on international tax cooperation and the role of taxation in fostering development.
The pronouncements are arguably a bit muted as they do not establish concrete timelines and they tend to discuss matters in general terms rather than recommending specific actions. This does not necessarily mean the fourth international conference is not ambitious. The Sevilla Commitment should be analyzed in tandem with a new platform launched at the financing for development conference entitled the 'Sevilla Platform for Action.' That platform, which contains over 130 accompanying initiatives, is where much of the conference's work will be implemented and will provide a base to evaluate the U.N.'s goals.
This year's outcome document devotes nearly 2,000 words to tax-related issues, and it sets an urgent scene. According to the document, developing countries saw their tax revenues rise in a promising trend between 2000 and 2010. But over the past few years, those revenues have plateaued or shrunk because of events like the global financial crisis, COVID-19 pandemic, and slowing global economic growth. Amidst this, the governments that support the outcome document are concerned that the current international tax rules fail to wholly embrace the distinct needs and capabilities of developing countries.
Yet they believe there's still space for international cooperation, especially as it relates to fighting tax evasion, reducing illicit financial flows (IFFs), and addressing corruption. Tax Expenditures
The group is concerned about transparency and accountability in public fiscal systems, and about tax expenditures in particular. 'We encourage enhanced oversight and management of tax expenditures, including through transparent tax expenditure reporting,' the document says. This language is a pared-back version of the statement that drafters had included in a January zero draft of the outcome document. January's version stated that countries would commit to improve transparency, oversight, and management of tax expenditures, and would commit to minimum standards on tax expenditure reporting.
Geneva, Switzerland - April 15, 2019: United Nations sign located outside the United Nations Office ... More in Geneva - image getty
Even though the final outcome document contains diminished language, the U.N., through the Sevilla Platform for Action, has launched a new initiative that has announced some promising goals. That initiative, the coalition for tax expenditure reform, has released a significant list of deliverables that include providing technical assistance to countries, participating in regional and policy initiatives, and providing recommendations on policy reforms. Notably, the coalition intends to support at least a dozen countries by 2036 and contribute to at least 5 global policy instruments within the same period.
Low tax-to-GDP ratios in developing countries make it abundantly clear that base broadening reforms are necessary. Within the outcome document, the drafters champion several strategies to expand domestic tax bases, such as integrating the informal sector into the formal economy and identifying undeclared income and wealth.
'This includes harnessing technology and innovation; investing in connectivity, digital public goods and infrastructure; promoting full and productive employment and decent work; [and] easing tax registration, reducing the cost of compliance and providing appropriate incentives, especially to support micro, small and medium sized enterprises,' the document says.
But taxing the informal sector raises questions about progressivity. The outcome document discusses this in a high-level manner and says the following:
We will promote progressivity and efficiency across fiscal systems to address inequality and increase revenue. We will promote progressive tax systems in countries, where applicable, and enhance efforts to address tax evasion and avoidance by high-net-worth individuals and ensure their effective taxation, supported by international cooperation, while respecting national sovereignty. We will also promote effective and equitable government spending.
While this is promising language, it reflects a missed opportunity to discuss — a bit more specifically — how countries will promote progressive taxation of their informal sectors. This is a notoriously difficult problem, especially given that the informal sector accounts for 80 percent or more of employment in some lower-income countries (OECD, 'Breaking the Vicious Circles of Informal Employment and Low-Paying Work,' Jan. 15, 2024; Maurizio Bussolo et al., 'COVID-19 has worsened the woes of South Asia's informal sector,' World Bank Blogs , Dec. 7, 2020).
Relatedly, the document says development partners should focus their efforts on projects that seek to increase countries' tax-to-GDP ratios — especially projects that seek to increase those ratios to 15 percent or more. The drafters say development partners should double their support within the next five years, which is a strong declaration. Green Taxation and Sin Taxation
Taxation of natural resources is a controversial issue for developing countries, and the outcome document says it will encourage effective taxation that optimizes revenue but also acknowledges countries' sovereignty. Along those lines, the outcome document says supporting countries will 'promote the consideration of the environment, biodiversity, climate, disaster risk, food security, nutrition and sustainability of agrifood systems in fiscal programming. . . . While respecting national sovereignty, options may include, but are not limited to, green budgeting, taxation and fiscal rules, and taxes on environmental contamination and pollution.' There's a lot to potentially explore and exploit in this area, and it segues into another topic addressed in the outcome document: sin taxes.
The outcome document calls on countries to consider tobacco and alcohol taxes as a method to boost national revenue and encourage healthy behavior, but it does not mention the same about climate-related excise taxes. The language about tobacco and alcohol taxes is a recent addition; the January draft did not include this language. A new initiative is being launched under the Sevilla Platform for Action, entitled the '3 by 35 Initiative.' Under this plan, the World Health Organization will encourage countries to levy tax increases on tobacco, alcohol, or sugary drink products that ultimately raise their prices by 50 percent by 2035.
The hand of a smoking man or woman on a table led an ashtray with draft beer in a pub. getty
While it is a positive addition, it also feels like a relic — at a time when younger people in particular are drinking and smoking less, it seems prudent for policymakers to consider other forms of sin taxes that can be significant revenue raisers, like climate-related excise taxes that can promote positive climate and health outcomes. The outcome document's omission of this idea is both curious and a missed opportunity that deserves more attention. Tech-Based Capacity Building
One of the most dynamic subjects mentioned in the outcome document is technology-based capacity building. 'We commit to enhance support to developing countries for country-led efforts to modernize revenue administration, especially digitalization, investment in information technology systems, improvement of revenue data and statistics, and use of artificial intelligence,' the document says. 'We encourage countries to support simplification of tax administration and registration for [micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises] and access to public services, including through open-source digital solutions.' This commitment would be a natural complement to ongoing 'Tax Administration 3.0' work that aims to digitalize tax administration and is being advanced by the OECD, IMF, Addis Tax Initiative, and other multilateral organizations. International Tax Cooperation
The outcome document devotes significant space to international tax cooperation. In this domain, the document makes several key commitments toward advancing international tax cooperation. The first is that supporting countries will commit to 'fully inclusive and effective' cooperation in international tax and endeavor to boost developing countries' participation. The second is that they will continue to support ongoing negotiations on the U.N. framework convention on international tax cooperation. The third is that the group will promote dialogue between national tax authorities, with acknowledgement of the U.N. Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters. The fourth is that the group requests that countries receive specific support as they implement the OECD's pillar 2 and subject-to-tax rules. The fifth is that the group will ensure that all companies pay taxes to the countries where their economic activity happens and where they create value, in keeping with national and international laws and standards.
The group additionally says they are devoted to tax transparency. On the transparency point, the outcome document states that supporting countries will aid developing countries as they implement transparency standards and will 'give them special considerations, while ensuring data protection and information security.' This is important language, as it promises to build upon the progress that countries have made in adopting and implementing tax transparency standards and acknowledges the difficulties that developing countries have faced in fully implementing some of those standards. However, it is pared back from January's draft, which stated that countries would commit to offer grace periods for full reciprocity under the automatic exchange of tax information and simplify certain standards (although it did not describe those standards).
The group also promises to 'strengthen country-by-country reporting of multinational enterprises, when applicable, including further evaluating the creation of a central public database for country-by-country reports.' There is no multilateral coordination or standardization on public CbC reporting, and this could provide an opportunity to advance that objective. While there's been no mandate issued by the OECD or G20, there has been increasing recognition that some sort of standardization might be ideal. That's because there are several different public CbC reporting rules across European Union jurisdictions and Australia, and businesses are concerned about their reporting burdens.
It appears that quite a bit of this work will be advanced through a revamped version of the Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) program. According to the Sevilla Platform for Action, this program will be called TIWB 2.0. And perhaps one of the most noteworthy goals for TIWB 2.0 is that the program will specifically focus on South-South cooperation so that countries in the Global South can both teach and learn from each other.
The outcome document also discusses beneficial ownership transparency and commits to implementing domestic registries, supporting international information exchange, and exploring a global beneficial ownership registry. The document does not discuss the kinds of assets that could be included, nor does it discuss whether this global registry would lead to some sort of standardization across jurisdictions, but those discussions are presumably to come.
Lastly, the outcome document addresses IFFs. On this topic, supporting countries commit to regulating service providers at the national level and to engaging in international cooperation to reduce illicit activity. To advance this work, the Sevilla Platform for Action will rely on an existing policy tool hosted by the African Union, the Tax Justice Network Africa, and the African Tax Administration Forum, entitled the 'Anti-IFFs Policy Tracker.' That tool monitors and documents how countries are implementing laws, regulations, and policies to tackle IFFs, which is a novel approach. Conclusion
The tax provisions covered in the outcome document are written in a general manner, but when read in tandem with the Sevilla Platform for Action, a stronger picture emerges of the U.N.'s goals for the next decade. As U.N. countries design a new phase of work based on this year's financing for development conference, they face a long — but promising — road ahead, given the large scope of their goals. Hopefully in the months and years ahead it will become clearer how U.N. countries will specifically implement these plans. There's a lot of room for interpretation and many directions in which this work can go. As such, this year's outcome document is really just the opening bid for what countries can accomplish in the international tax space. The real work will be in the implementation phase, and in the work that is conducted through the Sevilla Platform for Action.