Tunde Fowler, Chairman, African Tax Administration Forum. Photo credit/FIRS
African Tax Experts elected Vice Chairmen, UN Tax Committee
For the centrality of tax to development today; and that developing tax now involves more countries and more civil societies, the newly inaugurated Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters, yesterday elected its leadership to advance these fronts.
Two African tax experts, Tunde Fowler, Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), was elected as 1st Vice Chairman while Eric Nil Yarboi Mensah, the Chairman of Ghanaian Revenue Authority, GRA is the 2nd Vice Chairman of the Committee.
The committee is meeting for the first time after the appointment.
This election took place yesterday in Geneva, Switzerland, where the global UN committee of tax experts is holding its meeting.
United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guteress, announced the appointment of the 25 members in a United Nations Economic and Social Council notification dated August 10th, 2017. The 25 tax experts were headhunted across the globe to sit in the Committee and proffer solutions to issues on international taxation and cooperation.
Five, out of the 25 new entrants into the prestigious Committee are Africans: Tunde Fowler, the Executive Chairman of Nigeria’s revenue authority—Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). He is also the Chairman of African Tax Administrations Forum (ATAF); Elfrieda Stewart Tamba, the Chairman of the Liberian Revenue Authority and Chairman of West African Tax Administrators Forum (WATAF); Margaret Moonga Chikuba, the Chairman of the Zambian Revenue Authority.
Others are Eric Nil Yarboi Mensah, the Chairman of Ghanaian Revenue Authority and George Omondi Obell, the Chairman of the Kenyan Revenue Authority.
The appointment is in accordance with the United Nations resolution—the Economic and Social Council resolution 2004/69—which established that “only 25 tax experts selected from among all countries of the world are needed to join the Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters, within an interval of every four years”.
Other tax experts in the Committee are: Natalia Aristazabal Mora (Colombia); Abdoulfatah Moussa Arreh (Djibouti); Rajat Bansal (India); Mitsuhiro Honda (Japan); Cezary Krysiak (Poland); Eric Nil Yarboi Mensah (Ghana); Dang Ngoc Minh (Vietnam); Patricia Mongkhonvanit (Thailand); Marlene Patricia Nembhard-Parker (Jamaica); Carmel Peters (New Zealand)
Others are: Carlos E. Protto (Argentina); Antonio Deher Rachid (Brazil) Aart Roelofsen (Netherlands); Christoph Schelling; (Switzerland); Aleksandr Anatolyevich Smirnov (Russia); Stephanie Smith (Canada); Titia Stolte-Detring (Germany); José Troya (Ecuador); Ingela Willfors (Sweden); Yan Xiong (China) and Sing Yuan Yong (Singapore).
Their mandate is to brainstorm always and offer, from their wealth of experience, knowledge of how the world can manage taxation for international development and cooperation.
Guteress, who signed the notification of appointment stated that a total of 60 nominations were received for the 25 positions in response to a note verbale, dated 27 April 2017, in which the Secretary-General invited Member States to nominate qualified candidates for selection into the Committee.
Michael Lennard, Chief of International Tax Cooperation at the United Nations, in a brief remark as the meeting commenced, underscored the importance of the important work the team need to do given the centrality of tax to development today.
Said Lennard: “Developing tax now involves more countries, more civil societies, including NGOs more Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs, more individuals, not just more Multinationals. More women. There is a lot more women on our tax committee this year. And more young people. There is a bigger debate.on.
“Enlarging the people involved in this debate not just in subject matter, but also generationally which I think is important in this matter.
“I also commend the organisers for addressing some of the trickiest, most nuanced areas of taxation, the ethical dimension, the issue of tax transparency and the issue of tax competition: a very, very difficult area. They are all the more important because of their difficulty.
“Taxes are at the centre of conflict and development and lifting people out of poverty and degradation and helping them to meet their potentials for the benefit of everyone. Putting that into context, the discussions today and the work of Tax Coop (Cooperation) at the South Centre, it’s all the more important that it is held in the heart of the UN.
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