Developing a World Tax Organization: The Way Forward

What is it about?

This is a book review of the book published by Fiscal Publications. Essentially the book is derived form the author's doctoral dissertation that examines how greater cooperation in cross border taxation could occur through the establishment of some form of international or world tax organization. Key components of the Abstract are set out below: Debate over whether tax policy requires more cooperation (ranging from loose coordination to complete harmonisation) or more freedom of competition, continues within the international tax literature. I am an advocate for greater formal coordination between sovereign nations with respect to tax policy and administration but I do not support complete harmonisation. Specifically with this book I intend to make a significant contribution to this debate through justifying why a standalone World (International) Tax Organisation (abbreviated to ITO to avoid confusion with the World Trade Organisation (WTO)) should be created to facilitate greater international tax policy and process coordination. Previous commentators and scholars have debated the desirability (or otherwise) of some form of international tax organisation or addition of such a feature to an existing organisation to foster greater coordination but have not offered any form of concrete proposal or clearly articulated the scope of such an organisation’s jurisdiction.. Thus the major contribution of this book is justifying the creation of a standalone organisation (the ITO) with a specific initial jurisdiction. Implicit in this proposition is that after its establishment and assuming successful operation (to be critically evaluated), I would advocate for the ITO’s jurisdiction to be expanded. In effect I am proposing that through a process of gradualism and experimentation, an international organisation should assume more and more responsibility for coordinating administrative tax policy and processes on business transactions with cross border implications. Specifically my proposed standalone ITO would be established with binding (advance) rulings (involving cross-border business transactions) and advance pricing agreements (APAs) as its initial area of jurisdiction. I demonstrate how these two important areas of tax administration would benefit from enhanced international coordination. In support of my proposal the book provides a comprehensive analysis of the steps involved (including the higher level technical specifications) in order for an ITO to become the subject of discussion by policymakers. Nevertheless it is important to acknowledge that the book is not intended to be a definitive analysis of the areas for potential expansion of the ITO’s jurisdiction. The level of precision concerning the content of documents for the formation and operations of an ITO is at the high level; the necessary precision in order to table documents for international debate by government officials would form part of the negotiation process for establishing the ITO.

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Why is it important?

This is a comprehensive analysis that includes practical implications and suggestions for the establishment of an ITO, something that has been debated previously but not developed to this extent.