Tax Policy: How Inclusive Is The OECD’s Inclusive Framework?
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Martin Hearson of the International Center for Tax and Development and Emmanuel Eze of the Nigerian Federal Inland Revenue Service discuss the role and influence of developing countries in the OECD’s inclusive framework.
This post has been edited for length and clarity.
Stephanie Soong Johnston: Thank you so much for joining me today on our podcast, Martin and Emmanuel. I wanted to ask Martin about your joint research paper on the inclusive framework, and then Emmanuel about his experiences with the inclusive framework as a delegate representing Nigeria.
Let me start by asking Martin: Can you please explain your paper and the title, which is "At the Table, Off the Menu? Assessing the Participation of Lower-Income Countries in Global Tax Negotiations."
Martin Hearson: It's a play on this slogan that I keep hearing at pretty much every conference on tax and development that I go to, which is if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. It's a slogan that came from the campaigners who said there should be a intergovernmental global tax body.
They said that developing countries are not at the table at the OECD. That means they're on the menu, which means they're going to get eaten, metaphorically at least, by the OECD countries.
Then what happened was a couple of years ago I noticed that OECD Center for Tax Policy and Adminstration Director Pascal Saint-Amans had co-opted the term. He was starting to say, "Well, look, we've created the inclusive framework. Developing countries are at the table now. So, we agree with what the campaigners were saying and we fixed it."
Yet, at the same time, you had campaigners and some critical reports coming from the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF), for example, saying, "Well, there's this inclusive framework, but it is not really very inclusive." In fact, the ATAF reports that I'm thinking of from a year or two ago ran with this metaphor of "at the table, off the menu" quite extensively, discussing the ways in which the developing countries may be at the table, but the menu was still not quite inclusive enough.
We thought it would be great to inject a bit of objective research into this debate, to try and get inside a little bit what happens inside the inclusive framework. We looked at what could be done to make it work more effectively, given that I think everybody acknowledges that developing countries aren't always able to be as influential as we would like.
I would say that I think it's not that the OECD secretariat and the OECD countries don't want developing countries to be more effective. I think everybody realized for the inclusive framework to work, there's got to be a sense from the countries that are part of it that they're really getting something out of being part of it.
From an academic perspective, I feel that I listened to people talking about the OECD, saying "The OECD has done this. The OECD has announced that," in a very non-specific way. I think too often when we say that, what we're meaning is the OECD secretariat and we're not teasing out the fact that, well, is it the member states? Is it the committees and the working parties? Or is it the Center for Tax Policy and Administration in this? Or is it the secretariat as a whole? I think looking inside a bit at the way things work from academic perspective was something I've been keen to do for a while.
Read More : pg slot
Martin Hearson of the International Center for Tax and Development and Emmanuel Eze of the Nigerian Federal Inland Revenue Service discuss the role and influence of developing countries in the OECD’s inclusive framework.
This post has been edited for length and clarity.
Stephanie Soong Johnston: Thank you so much for joining me today on our podcast, Martin and Emmanuel. I wanted to ask Martin about your joint research paper on the inclusive framework, and then Emmanuel about his experiences with the inclusive framework as a delegate representing Nigeria.
Let me start by asking Martin: Can you please explain your paper and the title, which is "At the Table, Off the Menu? Assessing the Participation of Lower-Income Countries in Global Tax Negotiations."
Martin Hearson: It's a play on this slogan that I keep hearing at pretty much every conference on tax and development that I go to, which is if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. It's a slogan that came from the campaigners who said there should be a intergovernmental global tax body.
They said that developing countries are not at the table at the OECD. That means they're on the menu, which means they're going to get eaten, metaphorically at least, by the OECD countries.
Then what happened was a couple of years ago I noticed that OECD Center for Tax Policy and Adminstration Director Pascal Saint-Amans had co-opted the term. He was starting to say, "Well, look, we've created the inclusive framework. Developing countries are at the table now. So, we agree with what the campaigners were saying and we fixed it."
Yet, at the same time, you had campaigners and some critical reports coming from the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF), for example, saying, "Well, there's this inclusive framework, but it is not really very inclusive." In fact, the ATAF reports that I'm thinking of from a year or two ago ran with this metaphor of "at the table, off the menu" quite extensively, discussing the ways in which the developing countries may be at the table, but the menu was still not quite inclusive enough.
We thought it would be great to inject a bit of objective research into this debate, to try and get inside a little bit what happens inside the inclusive framework. We looked at what could be done to make it work more effectively, given that I think everybody acknowledges that developing countries aren't always able to be as influential as we would like.
I would say that I think it's not that the OECD secretariat and the OECD countries don't want developing countries to be more effective. I think everybody realized for the inclusive framework to work, there's got to be a sense from the countries that are part of it that they're really getting something out of being part of it.
From an academic perspective, I feel that I listened to people talking about the OECD, saying "The OECD has done this. The OECD has announced that," in a very non-specific way. I think too often when we say that, what we're meaning is the OECD secretariat and we're not teasing out the fact that, well, is it the member states? Is it the committees and the working parties? Or is it the Center for Tax Policy and Administration in this? Or is it the secretariat as a whole? I think looking inside a bit at the way things work from academic perspective was something I've been keen to do for a while.
Read More : pg slot
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