September 29, 2017
Tom Cardamone
Maximizing Domestic Revenue Mobilization and Curtailing Illicit Financial Flows are Key to the Development Agenda
WASHINGTON, DC – The Addis Tax Initiative (ATI) this month invited Global Financial Integrity (GFI) as the first Supporting Organization to be added since the initiative was launched in July 2015. GFI joins the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in this role. As a Supporting Organization, GFI will be able to contribute to the ATI’s Monitoring Report and its Domestic Revenue Mobilization Database. Global Financial Integrity is a Washington, DC-based organization that provides research, advisory services, and technical solutions to governments as a means to maximize domestic revenue mobilization for global development.
Tom Cardamone, the Managing Director of GFI, issued the following statement:
“We welcome the Addis Tax Initiative’s invitation to join as a Supporting Organization and look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration. With their focus on domestic revenue mobilization, ATI members are working together to get to the heart of the development challenge—helping developing countries collect more resources to boost their economies. In a May 2017 study, GFI estimated that between $1.4 and $2.5 trillion in illicit funds flowed in and out of developing countries in 2014 (the most recent year for which data are available). These flows undermine traditional development and investment efforts and contribute to inequality. It is imperative that governments substantially increase their revenue capture if the are to reach the Sustainable Development Goals.”
“Joining the Addis Tax Initiative as a Supporting Organization is just the latest step GFI has taken in the area of domestic revenue mobilization. In November of 2016 GFI launched GFTrade™, a proprietary cloud-based risk-assessment tool that enables developing country customs departments to detect when the value of goods in the port varies significantly from historical averages. Large variations in valuation can indicate the possibility of tax evasion, trade-based money laundering, and other illicit activity. Trade misinvoicing greatly undermines tax collection and is the largest source (at close to 90 percent) of illicit financial flows that we measure. GFI looks forward to lending its research and expertise to support the member governments of the ATI in their efforts to enhance the mobilization and effective use of domestic revenues and to improve the fairness, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness of their tax systems.”
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