Symposium paper: Tax equity around the world – introduction

As inequality has risen around the world, the importance of tax design for achieving equity objectives has become increasingly widely discussed and is the focus of much recent public finance research. At the same time, globalisation and the increasing international mobility of capital have brought international and jurisdictional issues in tax policy to the fore for many countries and for the international community more generally.

This set of issues was showcased at the 4th World Bank Tax Conference in September 2022, which focused on ‘Global Tax Equity’. The meeting was hosted by the World Bank and organised jointly by the World Bank, the Overseas Development Institute, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and UK Aid, and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. 

The conference brought together leading researchers and policymakers to discuss the role of fiscal policy in dealing with the challenge of global inequality, both within countries and internationally, and how new data sources and research might inform such a debate. It featured discussions of recent research on making tax systems more equitable at a global scale, including the taxation of high-net-worth individuals, including wealth taxation; tax transparency, beneficial ownership, offshoring and tax havens; and taxes on multinationals and large corporations.

The set of perspectives papers in this symposium showcases some of the key policy questions and discussions from that meeting of academic researchers, tax and development practitioners and policymakers. This paper introduces the symposium.