The Platform for Collaboration on Tax (PCT) will hold its First Global Conference on February 14-16, 2018 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The conference will focus on the key directions for tax policy and administration needed to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The side event, co-hosted by PSI, GATJ, ActionAid, CESR, DAWN, the Tax Justice Network, Christian Aid and the Bretton Woods Project, will take place on Friday February 16, 8:30-9:30AM at the UN Building in New York - Conference Room 12.

Tax is a gendered issue and matters for women’s rights and for achieving the SDGs, not least Goals 5 and 10. Without adequate, equitable and accountable mobilization of resources through tax, the 2030 Agenda and the promise to ‘Leave No One Behind’ will not be met. Gender equality experts and policy analysts will outline how the tax and related fiscal systems of both developing and developed countries discriminate against women and represent a barrier to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Unfair tax systems threaten the realization of women’s human rights and contribute to increasing levels of gendered socio-economic inequality—exacerbated by the global trend towards fiscal austerity. Presentations include details on the multiple negative gendered impacts of VAT and other forms of consumption taxation, differential tax treatment of labour and capital incomes, business tax regimes, transnational corporate tax avoidance and tax havens.

Speakers include:

• Margaret Brew-Ward – Advocacy and Campaigns Manager, ActionAid Ghana
• Kathleen Lahey – Professor and Queen's National Scholar, Faculty of Law, Queen's University
• Kate Donald – Director of Human Rights in Sustainable Development, Center for Economic and Social Rights
• Corina Rodrigez Enriquez – Feminist Economist; Executive Committee Member of DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era); Researcher
• Emma Burgisser – Gender Project Manager, Bretton Woods Project

For more information:

• Download the flyer (PDF)
• See PSI's website on public funding and taxation
• Sign and share the Bogota Declaration on Tax Justice for Women's Rights!