Taxation

The News and Events category publishes the latest News and Events relating to International Economic Law relating to Africa and the Global South. Every week, Afronomicslaw.org receive the News and Events in their e-mail accounts. The News and Events published every week include conferences, major developments in the field of International Economic Law in Africa at the national, sub-regional and regional levels as well as relevant case law. News and Events with a Global South focus are also often included.

The escalating concentration of global extreme poverty is particularly pronounced in Africa, where the continent presently accounts for 55% of the total worldwide poverty. Reports indicate that these numbers are expected to rise due to the enduring impacts of climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the conflict in Ukraine. As we hit the six-year mark before the designated milestone for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is apparent that African nations are still notably behind in making substantial strides toward the specific targets outlined in the SDG Agenda. Expanding upon the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which concluded in 2015, the SDGs underscore the commitment to addressing a broad spectrum of global challenges. The SDG Agenda tackles 17 pivotal development challenges, spanning areas such as poverty, health, gender equality, crucial aspects of economic growth, urgent global warming issues, social justice, and the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies. Globally, there is a recognition that countries bear the primary responsibility for addressing systemic issues leading to revenue loss, and global cooperation is essential to supporting national efforts in achieving the SDGs. Within the African context, there have been calls to African leaders to address structural barriers impeding domestic resource mobilization as a key to the successful implementation of development projects aimed at enhancing the lives of African citizens. This is viewed as a sustainable solution to confront the severe and multidimensional nature of poverty in African nations, requiring concerted efforts from leaders to reshape policies that currently facilitate capital outflows.

There is no gainsaying the fact that Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) constitute a major impediment to Africa’s sustainable development. In fact, IFFs have a direct impact on a country’s ability to raise, retain and mobilise its own resources to finance sustainable development. Its negative impact further includes draining a country’s foreign exchange reserves, reducing domestic resource mobilization, preventing the flow of benefits of foreign direct investment, and worsening insecurity, poverty and economic inequality.

This commentary responds to Fernando C. Saldivar's article 'Africa in the Economy of Francesco'. This commentary focuses on the author's main argument, which grows from the view that the tax justice movement needs to involve Catholic Social Teaching as an intellectual and moral ally in the fight for systemic reform in the global financial order. The article's main claim is critiqued on two fronts. Firstly, this commentary questions whether a moral backbone, particularly the Catholic moral niche, is sufficient to prevent tax evasion and tax avoidance by MNCs. And secondly, it is argued that the article could have advanced a deeper analysis if it had explored the nature of tax law from both the perspective of its 'spirit' aspect and its more technical aspects.

Taxing the digital economy has been on the international tax agenda for almost 30 years, revolving about how to tax an industry increasingly based on intangibles, scale effect, and market reach without a physical presence. But following Crawford and Joler’s concept of extractivism (2020; 2021), the digital economy is not only about BATX or GAFAM, but also about material resources, human labor, and data. The article analyses those long-forgotten elements of the Digital Economy’s true value chain, and, as the most recent two-pillar-based reform of the Inclusive Framework does actively exclude them, how those elements could be considered in the reform process.

The overarching ambition of the book is to advance the conversation on the norm generating aspects of the work of the AU, its organs and its institutions. The broad proposition presented collectively by the contributions is that the AU has become a standards generating regional institution, and that this capacity is rapidly evolving.

Contributions to the book are expected to contain conceptual analyses and country studies on taxation, human rights, and sustainable development. The goal is to present comparative, historical and contemporary accounts that will enable cross-exchange of ideas, practices and innovative solutions for taxation and human rights and improving its effectiveness in the Global South.

Nigeria is being careful with its approach in its quest to tax the digital economy. Rather than enacting a stand-alone digital service tax law, Nigeria is amending key parts of its corporate income tax law to accommodate effects of the digital economy. These amendments, particularly the latest amendment on turnover assessment, are not substantially different from an average digital service tax. Both taxes are levied on turnover of digital platforms. The 6% tax rate on turnover is likely to be a major concern for non-resident companies as it is much higher than the digital service taxes in other jurisdictions. France and UK impose 3% and 2% digital service tax respectively; while Kenya, a comparable developing country in the same region, has 1.5% digital service tax. Canada is in advanced stage of launching its 3% digital service tax on all in-country revenues earned on digital activities.