22 November 2016: Eight pilot tax projects have resulted in over US$260 million in additional tax revenues in countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, through the programme “Tax Inspectors Without Borders” (TIWB), the TIWB Secretariat has announced. TIWB was launched in 2015 by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
TIWB was designed to address widespread tax avoidance by multinational enterprises in developing countries, in order to enhance those countries’ ability to bolster domestic revenue collection through strengthening of tax audit capacities, in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The programme organizes deployment of tax experts to countries that request assistance with ongoing audits of multinational companies. The projects focus on revenue recovery and improving local audit capacity, while promoting the need for tax compliance.
Projects are currently being underway in 13 countries: Botswana, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Georgia, Ghana, Jamaica, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. TIWB projects are supported by a range of organizations, including revenue authorities in the Netherlands, Spain and the UK, the African Tax Administration Forum and the Paris-based TIWB Secretariat.
The Secretariat also announced plans for a range of new programmes in 2017, including new deployments of auditors to Cameroon, Egypt, Republic of Congo, Uganda and Vietnam, and the first South-South cooperation project under the TIWB initiative, by which Kenyan auditors will be deployed to Botswana.
Also on international tax cooperation, in September 2016 the Platform for Collaboration on Tax launched its first report, on building tax capacity in developing countries, to leaders of the Group of 20 (G-20). The Platform was established in February 2016 the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the OECD, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), and the World Bank Group. [UNDP Press Release on TIWB][SDG Knowledge Hub Story on Platform for Collaboration on Tax]