Fighting tax evasion in developing countries 

MEPs will call on companies to adopt country-by-country reporting and make all information publicly available in order to fight tax evasion and illicit money flows in developing countries, in a resolution to be debated on Tuesday and voted on Wednesday. They will also debate the UN conference on financing for development to be held on 13-16 July in Addis Ababa.



Developing countries raise substantially less revenue than advanced economies (with a tax to GDP ratio ranging between 10 to 20%, as opposed to 30 to 40% of OECD economies) and are characterised by extremely narrow tax bases.


Tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions that allow banking or financial information to be kept private, combined with 'zero-tax' regimes to attract capital and revenues that should have been taxed in other countries generate harmful tax competition, undermine the fairness of the tax system and distort trade and investment, particularly affecting developing countries, with a loss of an estimated $189 billion of tax revenue annually.


Procedure: non-legislative resolution


Debate: Tuesday, 7 July

Vote: Wednesday, 8 July

#taxevasion #illicitmoney