Meet the new UN tax committee

The list is out, together with a provisional agenda.

The BRICS minus Russia all have people on the committee (remember they do not represent their countries in an official capacity), although with some changes in personnel. The UK’s Andrew Dawson returns. Some of the key personalities behind the committee’s work this past session – previous chair Armando Yaffar and transfer pricing subgroup coordinator Stig Sollund – stay on. It’s great to see Zambia joining the sub-Saharan contingent, as one of the countries whose government seems most engaged in tax and development. Ghana has also replaced its nominee with the head of its treaty negotiating team, which is a shrewd move, while Azerbaijan’s top negotiator Ulvi Yusifov joins the committee after having attended pretty much every session for the past decade.

We’ll get more of a feel for the committee’s dynamics once we see who is elected as chair, and if and how the provisional work agenda is changed. Two flashpoints between OECD and non-OECD countries are likely to be the previous committee’s proposal to add a new article to the model treaty on taxation of services, and the plan to begin an update of the transfer pricing manual so soon after it was published.

Me though, I’m most looking forward to agenda item 6(a)(ii)b, “Whether a satellite in geostationary orbit could constitute a permanent establishment.”

The full committee membership is:

Mr. Khalid Abdulrahman Almuftah (Qatar)
Mr. Mohammed Amine Baina (Morocco)
Ms. Bernadette May Evelyn Butler (Bahamas)
Mr. Andrew Dawson (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)
Mr. El Hadji Ibrahima Diop (Senegal)
Mr. Johan Cornelius de la Rey (South Africa)
Ms. Noor Azian Abdul Hamid (Malaysia)
Ms. Liselott Kana (Chile)
Mr. Toshiyuki Kemmochi (Japan)
Mr. Cezary Krysiak (Poland)
Mr. Armando Lara Yaffar (Mexico)
Mr. Wolfgang Karl Albert Lasars (Germany)
Mr. Tizhong Liao (China)
Mr. Henry John Louie (United States of America)
Mr. Enrico Martino (Italy)
Mr. Eric Nii Yarboi Mensah (Ghana)
Mr. Ignatius Kawaza Mvula (Zambia)
Ms. Carmel Peters (New Zealand)
Mr. Jorge Antonio Deher Rachid (Brazil)
Mr. Satit Rungkasiri (Thailand)
Ms. Pragya S. Saksena (India)
Mr. Christoph Schelling (Switzerland)
Mr. Stig B. Sollund (Norway)
Ms. Ingela Willfors (Sweden)
Mr. Ulvi Yusifov (Azerbaijan)