The Tax and Gender Working Group of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice (GATJ)

Submission to the UN High Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (FACTI)

The COVID-19 conjuncture has laid bare decades of inequalities and systemic failures which are a result of neoliberal policies, colonial history, decades of privatisation and austerity measures. These policies have in turn constrained public finances, leading to underfunded social sectors, weak governance, rapid increases in public debt, and large social and physical infrastructural deficits. This neoliberal system continues to entrench a broken international financial architecture that enables illicit financial flows, tax evasion and tax avoidance by the rich and multinational corporations. This crisis underscores the urgency of decisive action to stop illicit financial flows and ensure revenues are mobilised and redirected not just for emergency responses, but to ensure just recovery and reconstruction where “building back better” also means better capacities to meet gender equality and other human rights obligations. A tool to assess economic policy in times of crisis is the UN’s Guiding Principles for human rights impact assessments for economic reform programmes.

The Tax and Gender Working Group appreciates and welcomes the opportunity to submit comments to the Panel. The focus of this contribution is on two of the FACTI Panel clusters:  1) improve cooperation in tax matters; and 2) accountability, public reporting and anti-corruption measures. 

Read the written submission here.

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