Uploaded June 2025 | Updated September 2026, 7 hours ago
Tax policies and systems play a key role in advancing equitable and improved health. Crucially, tax policies and systems perform multiple functions that act as the bedrock for any flourishing society, and which all make important contributions to improved health. These multiple functions can be easily remembered as ‘the five Rs of tax’: Revenue, Redistribution, Representation, Repricing and Regulation.
However, current tax policies and systems, particularly in the global South, are failing. In many low-income countries, tax revenues make up a small percentage of GDP and are regressive. And across the world, tax avoidance and evasion, particularly by transnational corporations and wealthy elites, are a fundamental driver of social, economic, and political inequalities, stripping governments of much needed revenues to invest in public health services.
Based on a recently published research paper, panelists at the event discuss why national and international tax policies and systems are failing society and why the health community must engage more actively in advocating for comprehensive tax systems reforms at both the national and global levels.
Key guiding questions
—What is the role of tax systems in contributing to healthy societies and good governance?
—Why are current tax systems failing and what can be done about it?
—What is the role of health professionals in tax policy discussions?
Programme
Welcome remarks and moderation
Magdalena Sepúlveda, Director, UNRISD
Panelists
David McCoy, UNU-IIGH
Katja Hujo, UNRISD
Liz Nelson, Tax Justice Network
Bernadette O’Hare, University of St Andrews
Tax policies and systems play a key role in advancing equitable and improved health. Crucially, tax policies and systems perform multiple functions that act as the bedrock for any flourishing society, and which all make important contributions to improved health. These multiple functions can be easily remembered as ‘the five Rs of tax’: Revenue, Redistribution, Representation, Repricing and Regulation.
However, current tax policies and systems, particularly in the global South, are failing. In many low-income countries, tax revenues make up a small percentage of GDP and are regressive. And across the world, tax avoidance and evasion, particularly by transnational corporations and wealthy elites, are a fundamental driver of social, economic, and political inequalities, stripping governments of much needed revenues to invest in public health services.
Based on a recently published research paper, panelists at the event discuss why national and international tax policies and systems are failing society and why the health community must engage more actively in advocating for comprehensive tax systems reforms at both the national and global levels.
Key guiding questions
—What is the role of tax systems in contributing to healthy societies and good governance?
—Why are current tax systems failing and what can be done about it?
—What is the role of health professionals in tax policy discussions?
Programme
Welcome remarks and moderation
Magdalena Sepúlveda, Director, UNRISD
Panelists
David McCoy, UNU-IIGH
Katja Hujo, UNRISD
Liz Nelson, Tax Justice Network
Bernadette O’Hare, University of St Andrews
