The United Nations in Global Tax Coordination
Hidden History and Politics

This book reveals the missing international tax history of how the UN was ousted from global international tax policy making by developed countries.

Nikki J. Teo (Author)

9781009180467, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 March 2023

380 pages
23.5 x 15.1 x 2.9 cm, 0.9 kg

The United Nations in Global Tax Coordination fills the decade-long knowledge gap in international tax history concerning the UN Fiscal Commission, which functioned as the overarching fiscal authority during the early post-World War II economic order. With insights from political economy and international relations scholarship, this critical archival examination chronicles the tenacious activism by post-colonial developing countries to preserve source taxation rights, and by the UN Secretariat in championing the development of equitable tax rules. Such activism would ultimately lead developed countries to oust the UN as a forum for international tax norm setting. The book includes a revealing prehistory of the wartime work of the League of Nations that questions the legitimacy of the Mexico Model, the first model tax convention between developed and developing countries. This expertly researched work is essential reading for understanding the roles of politics, states, secretariats and private actors in directing global tax coordination.

1. Introduction
2. Prelude to global tax coordination: the league's Princeton mission in the Americas
3. Creation of the fiscal commission (1943– 1946)
4. Pax Americana, cold war and decolonisation: impact on the UN institutional machinery for fiscal activities and postwar international financial flows
5. First session of the fiscal commission and aftermath (1947)
6. Related intervening developments (September 1947– November 1948)
7. Second session of the fiscal commission and aftermath (1949)
8. Related intervening developments (January 1949– April 1951)
9. Third session of the fiscal commission and aftermath (1951)
10. Related intervening developments (May 1951– April 1953)
11. The taxation of international air transport and contending with ICAO (1947– 1951)
12. Fourth session of the fiscal commission and aftermath (1953)
13. Dissolution of the fiscal commission and subsequent developments
14. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Taxation & duties law [LNU], Legal history [LAZ], Taxation [KFFD1], United Nations & UN agencies [JPSN1]