External publications

Justice in Global tax governance: assessing the role of tax expenditures

von Haldenwang, Christian / Sabine Laudage Teles
Externe Publikationen (2025)

in: Axel Berger / Clara Brandi / Eszter Kollar (eds.), Justice in Global Economic Governance: Normative and Empirical Perspectives on Promoting Fairer Globalisation, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 134-144

ISBN: 978-1-399-53013-2
Open access

The international tax system forms a regime in global economic governance that governs the allocation of taxing rights for cross-border transactions between countries. The regime is based on domestic tax laws, bilateral or regional tax treaties, non-binding guidelines, and multilateral agreements. There is no global institution such as an international tax organisation, although discussions on a new UN tax convention are currently underway (Laudage Teles & von Haldenwang, 2023). The key challenges for global justice are harmful tax competition between countries, as well as tax avoidance and tax evasion by multinational corporations and wealthy individuals. Such practices are facilitated by the widespread use of tax expenditures, referring to preferential tax treatments that favour specific sectors, activities or groups of taxpayers. At an international scale, the use of tax expenditures strips countries of desperately needed public revenues and deepens inequalities between tax havens and countries with high-income tax rates.[...]. Th eGlobal Tax Expenditures Database (GTED) is the first to shed light on the scale of tax expenditures and tax expenditure reporting worldwide. We use GTED data in this chapter to present a descriptive analysis of tax exependitures worldwide.

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