In a move the could effectively test the will of governments in poor countries to meaningfully re-direct billions of dollars lost to developmental pursuits on account of the profligacy of tax evasion, the United Nations is urging a clampdown on ‘tax dodgers’ as a means of garnering finances to help rebuild education systems in poor countries seriously afflicted by COVID-19.
With the garnering of resources for undertaking the task of breathing new life into global education delivery systems battered for most of 2020 by the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic, a United Nations Policy Brief titled “Education During COVID-19 And Beyond” issued in August, is calling on governments to aggressively rein in tax dodgers as a means of ensuring that the state can garner more resources to pour into the revival of countries’ education systems reeling from the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With poor countries reportedly losing in excess of three times what they secure in external aid through tax-evasion, primarily by big businesses, the UN is seeking a reining in of ‘tax dodgers’ particularly among delinquent ‘fat cat’ business enterprises. Major tax-dodging scams are known to take place with the complicity of state officials who in turn, benefit from favours granted by the tax cheats.
The Policy Brief, issued in the name of UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres, says that clamping down on tax dodgers can help strengthen “domestic resource mobilization” for rebuilding education systems as a “top priority.” The Policy Document notes that while “widening the tax base in countries with a large informal sector takes time, other measures including fighting tax avoidance and evasion, [and] revising tax incentives and treaties need to be explored without delay.”
The UN Policy Document says, meanwhile, that “education systems themselves share a direct responsibility to increase the fiscal space by improving the cost-effectiveness of education services.” It also wants Ministries of Education to strengthen dialogue with Ministries of Finance in a systematic and sustained way to maintain and where possible, increase the share of the national budget for education.”
Along with making a better case for investments at the national and international level, the education and other social sectors “could use their political leverage to give a new urgency to, and to make real progress on, reform of financing for development, in particular, and reform of public financial management,” the Policy Document adds.
Meanwhile, the UN Secretary General is urging governments to “listen to the voices of all concerned,” not least those of parents, caretakers, and teachers, in order to ensure that decision-making on the re-opening of schools benefit from the widest possible cross-section of stakeholder inputs. “An essential part of the decision-making process is consultation and joint planning for reopening with communities and education stakeholders,” the Policy Document says, warning that a “lack of clearly communicated and predictable planning can lead to a loss of teachers to other forms of employment, and to more children entering the labour market, decreasing the chances that they will return to learning.”
