For Neven Mimica, “one paragraph on tax coordination” was the only major sticking point that created a few tense days of heated negotiation in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Indeed, disagreement over the creation of an intergovernmental tax body that would enforce tax evasion and avoidance standards had threatened to derail negotiations and result in the third International Conference on Financing for Development ending with no final outcome document in place.
But for the European commissioner for international cooperation and development, even this was not “a major point of difference.” Mimica stressed that participants and partners in the negotiations came to Addis not to debate the creation of an intergovernmental tax body but to discuss ways to “make the U.N. tax committee more effective.”