





As we approach World Environment Day on June 5, 2025, under the theme of “Beat Plastic Pollution,” we believe it is crucial to address the intertwined issues of plastic pollution and environmental degradation in our community.
The pathway to a just and youth-friendly tax regime is clear: policies must keep pace with the realities of young entrepreneurs, formal and informal, urban and rural alike. Only through ongoing reform, robust support systems, and genuine participatory tax justice can Uganda unlock the full power of its youth as architects of a more prosperous future.
Delegates agreed on the importance of preventing disputes before they occur. Yet tools like advance pricing agreements, joint audits, simultaneous examinations, and cooperative compliance programs remain unevenly accessible. Key views included support for a legal basis enabling cross-border preventive cooperation, strong calls for capacity-building, information-sharing, and improved access to timely data, and emphasis on strengthening information systems and exchange-of-information frameworks. Interests were also seen in optional cross-border prevention mechanisms backed by future best practices and CoP-led support.
The conversation then drifted on questions on how to handle disputes in the absence of tax treaties. For developing countries, the answer was simple … “No treaty, no dispute-resolution mechanism.” For them, the Protocol should not create new legal bases.
But across the room, private sector voices insisted that disputes do not wait for treaties; businesses struggle with uncertainty, and governments lose revenue. They pressed for innovations, with some calling for strengthening MAP, others calling for coordinated unilateral Advance Pricing Agreements (APAs), and others for the view that temporary unilateral relief would prevent double taxation.