The Global Alliance for Tax Justice and the South Centre will host the webinar “Tax policy options for funding the post-COVID recovery in the Global South” on 23 July at 3 PM (CEST). It will bring together experts, policy-makers, government officials, practitioners and other stakeholders from Asia, Africa and Latin America to discuss what are the concrete tax policy measures developing countries can take to raise revenue at this critical time.

While the COVID-19 pandemic produced winners, such as corporations in the digital economy and billionaires, who increased their wealth during this period, the Global South is especially being negatively affected by the drop in global commodity prices and decline in international trade. “Redistributive fiscal measures are both possible and necessary”, highlights Dereje Alemayehu, Executive Coordinator of GATJ.

Governments are implementing tax measures such as deadline extensions, payment deferrals and accelerated tax refunds to try to lessen the burden on taxpayers and keep the cash-flows of businesses running. However, this worsens an ongoing trend: developing countries are not only suffering from the global slowdown, but also bearing the burden of an international tax system that has historically been against their interests.

As a consequence, this will affect their governments’ ability to respond to this unprecedented socio-economic crisis caused by the pandemic, which has been aggravating existing inequalities. Austerity measures are already emerging as countries are being forced to slash budgets and place restrictions on government expenditure and fiscal deficits debt.

Besides diving deeper into the challenges imposed by our current global tax architecture, the speakers will also go through alternative international frameworks for taxing the digital economy players, both at the domestic and international level, and proposals to strengthen the South-South cooperation in the face of the pandemic.

Tax policy options for funding the post-COVID recovery in the Global South
Date: 23 July 2020
Time: 3 pm (CEST)
Registrations: https://bit.ly/32ifmYE