Tax Inspectors Without Borders lifts off

Who can developing countries rely on as they try to navigate an increasingly complex tax environment and corporate reliance on tax havens? Tax Insepctors Without Borders.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and United Nations Development Program announced the new program, a take-off of Doctors Without Borders, on Monday to help struggling countries capture much-needed revenue.

{mosads}“The challenges faced by developing countries are being acknowledged internationally and we are delighted to mobilize the best experts worldwide in a practical contribution to domestic resource mobilization,” Angel Gurría, the OECD’s secretary general, said at an event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to introduce Tax Inspectors Without Borders.

The program’s sponsors said Tax Inspectors Without Borders will help countries give more thorough audits and other enforcement measures to ensure governments are collecting the revenue they are owed.

Colombia, for instance, collected 10 times more revenue in 2014 ($33.2 million in U.S. dollars) than it did in 2011 ($3.3 million), which the OECD and UNDP chalked up at least in part to tougher enforcement standards.

Pilot programs for Tax Inspectors Without Borders are already underway in places like Albania, Ghana and Senegal.

“Effective domestic resource mobilization is at the core of financing for sustainable development. But efforts to raise domestic resources are often constrained by tax evasion and avoidance, and by illicit financial flows,” Helen Clark of the UNDP said in a statement.