Background

Increasingly relevant aspect of public financial management in the Pacific is tax transparency, tax governance and anti-money laundering, mainly from the perspective of PFM transparency and accountability. A number of Pacific countries are struggling with finding ways to mitigate these issues, and suffering concrete repercussions, such as bad rankings on various international lists and indices. One of the increasingly relevant lists is the EU List of Non-Cooperative Jurisdictions for Tax Purposes.

 The first ever EU List of Non-Cooperative Tax Jurisdictions was agreed by it’s the ECOFIN Council on 5 December 2017.  According to the European Commission, this list, created by the Code of Conduct Group (consisting of some European countries) , is part of the EU's work to fight tax evasion and avoidance and aims to create a stronger deterrent for countries that consistently refuse to play fair on tax matters. The overall goal of the EU list is to improve tax good governance globally, and to ensure that the EU's international partners respect the same standards as EU Member States do.[1]  The main criteria for listing the countries are: Tax transparency and exchange of information, Fair tax competition and Anti-BEPS measures.  The list is being continuously updated. To be more precise, in fact there are two lists: black list (annex I) and grey list (annex II). From the PICs,  currently only Samoa is in the original black list, while Fiji, Cook Islands, Palau, RMI, Vanuatu, Niue and Nauru are in the grey list (Jurisdictions that have committed to implement good tax governance principles).

Commitments taken by the grey-listed jurisdictions are continuously monitored. The list is regularly updated and remains dynamic. It is expected to have concrete consequences and dissuasive sanctions are being implemented against black-listed jurisdictions.  In this context the European Commission and UNDP are looking at ways to extend tailored technical assistance to PICs that have the desire to improve their tax governance in line with the international standards and that are interested in assistance.  

This consultancy commissioned under the framework of the “Strengthening Public Finance Management (PFM) and Governance in the Pacific” project, is the first step in that direction, and therefore it is focused on diagnostics and initial technical assistance for selected countries to outline a roadmap for improving their tax governance. The assistance would consist of providing strategic and legal advice on issues of relevance for the listing.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of work

The Consultant, working under the direct supervision of the Anti-Corruption Specialist, will be responsible for:

• Data collection, analysis and mapping of the selected jurisdictions tax governance, with particular view on their standing on the EU List of Non-Cooperative Tax Jurisdictions;

• Assist the countries in drafting legislation aimed at addressing requirements stemming from the EU List of Non-Cooperative Jurisdictions for tax purposes, if requested;

  Producing a report that contains regional and per-country diagnostics, existing support, gaps and roadmaps for action for improving the standing in the EU list;

• The Advisor will provide technical advisory services to selected PICs for advancing their standing based on the roadmaps, when required;

• The Advisor will write a report for UNDP and EU with proposals for next steps in technical assistance in this area, based on his/her experiences in working with the selected PICS under this contract.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

• The Advisor will be recruited on a long- term consultancy and engaged only for indicatively 100 days within an 18-month period. The individual contract issued is intended for on-call intermittent engagement, therefore, prior to engaging the Advisor to support any of the activities refer to in the Scope of Work, a Terms of Reference will be developed by UNDP and agreed to by both parties. The TOR will outline the expected outputs, and the number of days to be engaged, in the frame of the scope of work outlined above. The Advisor will prepare detailed reports for every assignment/deliverable completed.

Institutional Arrangement

• The Advisor will work under the general direction and supervision of the Anti-Corruption Specialist.

• At the end of each assignment, the Advisor will debrief the Anti-Corruption Specialist, Effective Governance Team Leader and the EUD in Suva on the work undertaken under this assignment;

• In the course of the assignment the advisor will need to have regular communication with the relevant institutions from the assigned jurisdictions, as well as with the UNDP Effective Governance Team and the PFM team in the EUD in Suva. Interaction with other relevant organizations and programmes, such as the OECD, the Pacific Financial Technical Assistance Center (PFTAC) and others.

• All reports and documents relating to the assignment will be submitted to the UNDP Pacific Office in Fiji.

• In undertaking the assignment, UNDP, through the PFM Project team, will provide some logistical support to the consultant when in duty station and on mission. The type and the nature of logistical support to be provided by UNDP will be determined once an event or activity has been agreed to with the concerned jurisdiction. The EUD in Suva will also provide regular inputs and support as per their mandate.

   

  Duration of the Work

• The Advisor will be recruited on a long-term consultancy and engaged only for indicatively 100 days within an 18-month period. The individual contract issued is intended for on-call intermittent engagement, therefore, prior to engaging the Advisor to support any of the activities refer to in the Scope of Work, a Terms of Reference will be developed by UNDP and agreed to by both parties. The TOR will outline the expected outputs, and the number of days to be engaged. The outputs of the assignments will be reviewed by UNDP and the PFM team in the EUD is Suva.

Duty Station

The Advisor will be homebased and is expected to travel to the jurisdictions- PICs that will be selected by UNDP and the EUD in Suva, when required. He/She is expected to report directly to Anti-Corruption Specialist in the UNDP Pacific Office in Suva.  He/She is also expected to closely with relevant stakeholers at the various Pacific Jurisdictions, when undertaking this consultancy.

• The adviser will be home based with required travel to selected Pacific island countries depending on the needs and requests of the specific PICs; Since travel will be requested on Ad-hoc basis, UNDP will purchase air tickets for the Consultant based on the most direct route and cost-effective route as per UNDP Travel Guideline.

• UNDP will also provide Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA) to the Consultant for the duration of his/her stay at the respective duty station at UN approved DSA rates.

   

  The advisor will be expected to provide reports after every detailed assignment, as well as mission reports when performing missions in the field.

Competencies

COMPETENCIES

Required Skills and Experience

REQUIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE