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The world’s four leading multilateral organizations working in the tax area have established their first integrated website containing information on how low- and middle-income countries can strengthen tax systems and mobilize the domestic revenue they need to address some of their urgent development challenges - including the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new website is an initiative of the Platform for Collaboration on Tax, a joint effort by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations (UN) and the World Bank Group (WBG). It includes an extensive database that allows users to see - on a country-by-country basis - all of the latest information pertaining to the tax-related activities of the four organizations.

Through a new user-friendly website, the organizations will also offer toolkits, publications, and practical guidance that can help governments facing complex issues in international taxation. The website includes a section focused on what countries can do to address the immediate challenges posed by the COVID-19 outbreak.

The website is just one initiative the PCT is taking to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. Developing countries need trillions of dollars in additional financing, much of which will need to be mobilized domestically. However, a wide range of challenges prevent many countries from collecting the revenues they need. In more than a third of the world’s poorest countries, tax-to-GDP ratios are below the estimated 15 percent deemed necessary to carry out basic state functions.

The Platform for Collaboration on Tax was established in 2016 to bring together the expertise of the four largest multinational organizations that are active in tax matters. The new website reflects the wide-ranging and in-depth tax work that the four partners have undertaken across the globe since then. It is of interest not only to tax professionals but also to a wider audience interested in how tax policy and administration can help accelerate development. The website also highlights the organizations’ work in assisting developing countries in the formulation and implementation of country-owned Medium-Term Revenue Strategies (MTRS), a comprehensive and collaborative approach to support countries in reforming their tax systems.

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