Santiago calls for more teeth in UN tax treaty

Former Malaysian MP Charles Santiago has warned that weak provisions in a draft international tax treaty could hinder Malaysia's ability to collect tax revenue from multinational companies. Speaking at UN headquarters in New York during negotiations on the proposed UN tax convention, Santiago called for stronger obligations to be imposed on countries to align existing tax treaties with the convention.

He criticized the current provision, which only requires countries to take "progressive and meaningful steps" towards alignment, stating that this allows for existing unequal tax treaties to remain in force indefinitely. Santiago emphasized the importance of Malaysia not losing vital tax revenues needed for public infrastructure, healthcare, education, and climate adaptation.

He also urged the inclusion of an effective mechanism to deal with countries that refuse to negotiate or prolong the process indefinitely, and called for domestic laws to be aligned with the convention to ensure its obligations are reflected in laws governing multinational companies.

Brief written by urgent.news from Free Malaysia Today's own syndicated text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.