Countering cross-border tax evasion and avoidance: An assessment of OECD policy design from 2008 to 2018

This dissertation analyses the design of tax policies of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) between 2008 and 2018. Critiques levelled against some of the OECD’s earlier work raise the question if its recent tax policies for countering tax evasion and avoidance are fit for purpose. In answering this question, the thesis explores four policies under the prism of a typology of international tax cooperation that takes into account the divergences of interests among OECD members, and between OECD and non-members. The first policy is the tax haven blacklist (black-grey-whitelist) which has been endorsed in April 2009 during the G20 summit in London as a response to the global financial crisis. The second policy is the automatic exchange of tax information which has gradually become part of the “internationally agreed tax standard”. The third policy under review is country by country reporting (CbCR), which has been proposed by the OECD during its Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) action plan, targeting the tax avoidance of large multinational corporations. The fourth policy concerns the requirements around beneficial ownership of legal entities under tax standards established by the Global Forum of the OECD and anti-money laundering standards established by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). A central finding emanating from the four case study analyses is that there is a mismatch between OECD’s aspiration and self-presentation as a globally inclusive, efficient and apolitical expert think tank and the ultimate policy outputs both in terms of material policy positions and processes.