Tax Justice & Fiscal Reform

Our Work. 

We strive to reduce existing structural inequalities between developed and developing economies by amplifying civil society advocacy on tax matters and strengthening the ability of developing country governments’ to improve tax policies and minimise losses from illicit financial flows; ultimately helping to build more stable and transparent systems of public finance and more effective and accountable governments.

Recent Cases & Projects

Supporting Civil Society in Kazakhstan

  • ILP provided support to Echo, a Nur-Sultan-based NGO, in an effort to change the tax legislation of Kazakhstan in a way that will not allow the tax authorities to use it for putting additional pressure on the country's NGOs who receive funding from abroad.

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  • Kazakh tax authorities had arrested and were threatening to fine our client and other anti-corruption NGOs by taking an extreme interpretation of newly introduced obligations on reporting foreign funding. ILP was able to support the NGO through their arrest and trial, leading to the charges and court action being dropped and drafting an amended reporting obligation on behalf of civil society in order to prevent future harassment and abuse of legislation against civil society.

  • Negotiating a royalty pricing agreement for the government of Liberia:1 ILP provided technical expertise and completed negotiation support to the Liberian Revenue Authority on renegotiating a royalty pricing agreement. This ensures that the government and people of Liberia receive appropriate and fair market rate royalties for iron ore mining activities in their jurisdiction. 

  • Supporting the UN Committee of Experts on Taxing Digital Services: 2 ILP’s tax experts provided expert commentaries to the UN Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters. The advice supported more equitable taxation of digital services, by giving more taxing rights to “market” jurisdictions (where revenue is earned) rather than “residence” jurisdictions of corporations. ILP also provided technical legal support to tax authorities who are developing proposals for digital economy taxation. 

  • Energy Charter in Uganda: ILP provided support to a Ugandan NGO on the legal effect of the development of an energy charter for revenue and investment in Uganda. 

  • Trainings in multiple jurisdictions: Amongst other initiatives, ILP experts provided training to officials at the Madagascar Revenue Authority; to civil society activists in Kenya’s National Taxpayers Association; and to the African Union’s annual conference on Contract Negotiations and Fiscal Regimes in the Extractives Industry (convened by NEPAD, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development)

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