The increasing prominence of growing inequality around the world has intensified the interest in global tax fairness. In most countries, the tax burden has shifted from large multinational corporations (MNCs) and wealthy elites to ordinary citizens and smaller firms. This problem has been exacerbated by the inability of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project to address the critical needs of the poorer countries. While the effort was well-intended, resistance by several developed countries and their MNCs has blocked genuine progress. Roughly half of all world trade still passes through tax haven jurisdictions; and tax avoidance continues to be facilitated through complex and intransparent financial structures. The resulting enormous revenue loss affects people everywhere. But it hurts poor people in poor countries the most, because they are least able to assert themselves politically and they suffer vital losses when their state fails to make the basic social investments required to end their deprivation.

Following a previous collection (Global Tax Fairness, Oxford UP 2016), Editors Krishen Mehta (Tax Justice Network) and Thomas Pogge (Yale University) are collecting essays for a book that shall discuss which options are available to developing countries. This workshop and volume shall help tax administrators, policy makers, academics and civil-society experts, mainly from the Global South, to learn from one another and to jointly envision practices suitable to advancing their own countries toward tax justice and a better future for their citizens.

The workshop is organized jointly with the Global Justice Program at Yale University.