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UN Headquarters, New York

One of the current areas of focus of the UN Capacity Development Programme in International Tax Cooperation undertaken by the Financing for Development Office (FfDO) of UN-DESA is on strengthening the capacity of developing countries to increase their potential for domestic revenue mobilization through enhancing ability to effectively protect and broaden their tax base. Wasteful tax incentives have been identified by developing countries as major contributor to the tax base erosion.

Accordingly, FfDO organized a two-day workshop, with the participation of representatives of national tax authorities, Ministries of Finance and Ministries of Investment or Trade in developing countries, intended to provide these government officials with the information and tools, which will allow them to decide whether to use tax incentives to attract investment and how to best design and administer these incentives with a view to increasing their effectiveness. The participants received guidance in developing methodologies for estimating the costs and benefits of tax incentives, with a view to assessing the effectiveness of past, current and proposed tax incentive regimes.

The workshop drew from the experiences of representatives of developing countries which deal with tax incentives and from regional contributions by regional organizations of national tax administrations, such as ATAF and CIAT. Case studies provided an opportunity for country representatives to share their experiences in designing and implementing tax incentives and to identify the areas of greatest challenge. The discussions were guided by the world’s renowned experts in the area of tax incentives, drafting relevant legislation and cost-benefit analysis. The practical materials utilized in delivery of the workshop will be revised using feedback received from developing countries and will be used to deliver technical cooperation activities at the country level.

Participants in this workshop were also invited to attend Special Meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on International Cooperation in Tax Matters, which took place on 22 April 2015 and featured an update on the work of the UN Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters and several panel discussions on current issues in international tax cooperation of particular relevance to developing countries.