The Global Alliance for Tax Justice will hold a High Level Public Session with Policy Makers on “Shifting the Narratives; feminist taxation perspectives,” which will take place on 6th Dec as the opening session for the Tax Justice and Gender Equality Conference. The dominant narrative on how to fill the $2.5 trillion SDG financing gap relies mainly on private sector investments.

This model carries enormous risks: privatisation of key services, increased countries’ debt burdens, etc. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed a crisis of multiple dimensions that is causing unprecedented and devastating impacts on lives and livelihoods across the whole world, especially in the Global South. It is exacerbating the pre-existing structural inequalities, such as gender inequality in its different manifestations. Regressive and discriminatory tax policies are being used to raise government revenues, and continue to have negative impacts on poor people, especially women. Moreover, a broken international tax system and financial architecture continue to enable opaque legal structures and entities to facilitate illicit financial flows and tax abuse by the wealthy elite and multinational companies, enabling the extraction and distribution of wealth and property into the hands of few. This deprives governments from much needed resources to fund public services such as health, education, social protection and infrastructure to address the impacts of the COVID-triggered crisis.

The session will highlight the need for governments and multilateral institutions to implement structural reforms that uphold redistributive justice, including equal and progressive reforms in tax systems, where the wealthy elites and large corporate conglomerates pay their share of taxes in jurisdictions where their profits are created.