This chapter was originally published in the open-access book “Justice in Global Economic Governance: Normative and Empirical Perspectives on Promoting Fairer Globalisation” (Edinburgh University Press)
The international tax system forms a regime in global economic governance that governs the allocation of taxing rights for cross-border transactions between countries. The regime is based on domestic tax laws, bilateral or regional tax treaties, non-binding guidelines, and multilateral agreements. There is no global institution such as an international tax organisation, although negotiations on a new UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation are currently underway. The key challenges for global justice are harmful tax competition between countries, as well as tax avoidance and tax evasion by multinational corporations and wealthy individuals. Such practices are facilitated by the widespread use of tax expenditures, referring to preferential tax treatments that favour specific sectors, activities or groups of taxpayers. At an international scale, the use of tax expenditures strips countries of desperately needed public revenues and deepens inequalities between tax havens and countries with high-income tax rates.
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Citation: von Haldenwang, Christian, and Sabine Laudage Teles. “JUSTICE IN GLOBAL TAX GOVERNANCE: ASSESSING THE ROLE OF TAX EXPENDITURES.” Justice in Global Economic Governance: Normative and Empirical Perspectives on Promoting Fairer Globalisation, edited by Axel Berger et al., Edinburgh University Press, 2025, pp. 134–44. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/jj.27775767.18