Imposing Standards: The North-South Dimension to Global Tax Politics(Cornell Studies in Money)

In Imposing Standards, Martin Hearson shifts the focus of political rhetoric regarding international tax rules from tax havens and the Global North to the damaging impact of this regime on the Global South. Even when not exploited by tax dodgers, international tax standards place severe limits on the ability of developing countries to tax businesses, denying the Global South access to much-needed revenue. The international rules that allow tax avoidance by multinational corporations have dominated political debate about international tax in the United States and Europe, especially since the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. Hearson asks how developing countries willingly gave up their right to tax foreign companies, charting their assimilation into an OECD-led regime from the days of early independence to the present day. Based on interviews with treaty negotiators, policymakers and lobbyists, as well as observation at intergovernmental meetings, archival research, and fieldwork in Africa and Asia, Imposing Standards shows that capacity constraints and imperfect negotiation strategies in developing countries were exploited by capital-exporting states, shielding multinationals from taxation and depriving nations in the Global South of revenue they both need and deserve. Thanks to generous funding from the Gates Foundation, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellopen.org) and other repositories.

Table of Contents:
Prologue 1. The Problem with Tax Treaties 2. A History of Lower-income Countries in (and out of) Global Tax Governance 3. The Competition Discourse and North-South Relations 4. The International Tax Community and the Politics of Expertise 5. The United Kingdom 6. Zambia 7. Vietnam and Cambodia 8. Historical Legacies in a Rapidly Changing World

About the Author :
Martin Hearson is Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies and International Tax Program Lead at the International Centre for Tax and Development. Follow him on X @martinhearson.

Review :
Martin Hearson's Imposing Standards: The North-South Dimension to Global Tax Politics is a timely monograph that dives into the puzzling history of tax treaty negotiations between higher-income countries in the global North and lower-income countries in the global South during the last half-century. Imposing Standards is an important, well-written, and astutely argued book that casts light on a hitherto unexplored chapter in the history of global tax politics, contributes a novel theoretical approach, and establishes a new paradigm for the international tax discipline. (H-Net)