25 experts will guide countries in designing tax policies that serve the Sustainable Development Goals while navigating the digital economy, climate transition, and widening wealth inequalities
NEW YORK, 30 July 2025 – Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed 25 experts to the United Nations Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters for the 2025–2029 term. The experts will help countries design tax policies that advance their social, environmental, and economic development objectives and successfully implement them.
The Committee supports countries in navigating complex policy trade-offs, such as taxing digital services without discouraging innovation, designing environmental taxes that advance climate goals while maintaining competitiveness, and ensuring that double tax treaties protect developing countries’ tax bases while promoting investment. The Committee’s guidance provides countries with practical options and tools based on real-world experiences from tax systems around the world.
“The Committee helps countries work together to ensure their tax policies serve their development priorities,” explained Under-Secretary-General Li Junhua, head of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), which serves as secretariat for the committee. “Countries may want to modernize their tax treaties to reflect today’s digital economy, ensure fair taxation in the extractives sector, or explore options for wealth taxation. The Committee provides a unique space where diverse experts can tackle frontier challenges together, drawing upon relevant experiences and practices while developing new solutions that work across different tax systems.”
Through its connection to UN DESA’s capacity-development work, the Committee ensures that its guidance reflects practical realities while strengthening countries’ capacity to design and implement effective policies.
Experts on the Committee bring diverse expertise in tax policy design and administration, as well as international tax cooperation. The UN Secretary-General made his selection from the largest number of nominations the Committee has received since its inception, representing diverse geographical regions and tax systems. The majority of the appointees are women, reflecting the UN’s commitment to strengthening inclusivity in tax leadership.
Recent Committee guidance demonstrates its practical impact. The 2021-2025 membership developed breakthrough provisions that help countries tax cross-border digital services without requiring physical presence—one of today’s most challenging tax issues. They created a Sample Net Wealth Tax Law that countries can adapt, drawing on real experiences with taxing high-net-worth individuals. Their health taxes handbook demonstrates how targeted excise taxes can combat diseases while generating revenue, combining health and tax expertise to design effective policies.
The interdisciplinary nature of the Committee means expertise extends across multiple areas where tax policy and administration meet development goals. The previous membership’s outputs spanned guidance on treaty negotiation and transfer pricing rules for agricultural and pharmaceutical sectors, to increasing tax transparency and designing indirect taxes for Value Added Tax (VAT) and Goods and Services Tax (GST) systems.
“Among the completed products, the Committee’s new guidance on the relationship between tax, trade and investment agreements has drawn attention for helping countries ensure their own policies don’t work at cross purposes—and illustrates the continuous importance of international cooperation and alignment,” according to Mr. Christian Kaeser, Global Head of Tax and Corporate Vice President at Siemens.
While appreciating the stellar job done by the outgoing Committee membership, Ms Mary Baine, Executive Director of the African Tax Administration Forum, added, “ATAF welcomes the new Committee. The mix of experts is a sign of commitment to developing solutions that target both developing and developed countries alike, in an era of challenging multilateralism.”
In addition, the UN Tax Committee is part of the original story of the ongoing UN intergovernmental process toward a Framework Convention on International Cooperation in Tax Matters. Its guidance and perspectives can inform the work of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee as countries work toward more inclusive and effective multilateral tax cooperation at the United Nations.
Observes Mr. Márcio Verdi, Executive Secretary, Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT), “I have supported the work of the UN Committee of Experts for more than a decade and have witnessed its strategic importance for achieving a desired balance in tax discussions, especially in the field of tax treaties, and in the necessary discussion regarding the regional and international inequalities that still exist in tax matters.”
Committee Membership 2025-2029
The members of the UN Tax Committee for 2025-2029 and their nominating countries are:
- Angela Ang (Singapore)
- Jeneba Jackline Bangura (Sierra Leone)
- Hajara Batamuliza (Rwanda)
- Enrique Bolado Muñoz (Mexico)
- Neary Bun (Cambodia)
- Angie Clocheret (Belgium)
- Jorge Alberto Ferreras Gutiérrez (Spain)
- Mathew Olusanya Gbonjubola (Nigeria)
- Bhaskar Goswami (India)
- Antoine Guici (France)
- Wanjiru Kiarie (Kenya)
- Giedre Lideikyte Huber (Lithuania)
- Shaniece Lindsay (Jamaica)
- Wanda Montero Cuello (Dominican Republic)
- Kapembwa Elizabeth Namuyemba-Sikombe (Zambia)
- Eamonn O’Dea (Ireland)
- Claudia Lucia Pimentel Martins da Silva (Brazil)
- Alvaro Romano (Uruguay)
- Gian Andrea Sandri (Switzerland)
- Alexander Smirnov (Russian Federation)
- Trude Steinnes Sønvisen (Norway)
- Darlingston Y. Talery (Liberia)
- Hector Thompson (Australia)
- Mohamed Ali Waheed (Maldives)
- Yan Xiong (People’s Republic of China)
Committee members serve in their personal capacity as independent experts and are nominated through their national governments. Their collective expertise spans the spectrum of international tax cooperation, encompassing tax treaty design and negotiation, transfer pricing, taxation of extractive industries, modernization of tax administration, and emerging challenges in the digital economy. The new membership will determine its own work priorities for the four-year term based on evolving global tax challenges and the needs and priorities of developing countries.
The new membership will hold its first session in October 2025 at the United Nations Office in Geneva. The Committee welcomes input from Member States and other stakeholders. Its sessions in Geneva and New York are open to observers from government, civil society, business, and academia upon registration.
Background
The UN Tax Committee assists countries in combating tax evasion, aggressive tax avoidance, and illicit financial flows, while strengthening tax policy and administration to support domestic resource mobilization and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. The Committee develops practical guidance addressing long-standing challenges, such as double taxation, alongside emerging risks in the digital economy and crypto assets.
Further information on the Committee’s work can be found here.
Short biographies of Committee members are available in UN document E/2025/9/Add.14.
Media contact:
Caroline Lombardo, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, lombardoc@un.org