Community
Open platform
The Community is a platform Tribute offers, and supports with the means it can avail of, to any individuals and any organizations that in one way or other are involved with or take an interest in international tax disputes and their resolution.
Participation thus is open to courts, tribunals, and their judges; arbitration or mediation institutes, and their staff; professional arbitrators, mediators or facilitators; governments, international organizations, or NGOs, and their officials; tax practitioners, lawyers, accountants or economists, and their firms, and business executives and their companies; and academies and individual academics, or other lecturers or researchers.
Stakeholder shared interest
Despite effective dispute resolution being a shared interest, the extent of contacts and exchanges between these various stakeholders is still limited, and as such an important cause for the present lack of awareness of availability and use of international tax dispute resolution mechanisms.
For instance, parties that are each other’s opponents in disputes, such as government officials and tax practitioners, may within their daily settings have difficulty to meet at equal level and unhindered by prejudices or reservations. Likewise, there are many interested individuals, in various capacities, who find themselves standing pretty much alone within their own environments, with little opportunity for sharing at proper level with any others.
Mutual exchanges of views and experiences
Through the platform of the Community, all these individuals or bodies can meet and share relevant views, experiences, questions, papers, presentations, research results – anything they may find worthwhile to exchange with others having similar interests. Inputs may regard any relevant angle, including, for instance, legal, policy, economic, accountancy, or administrative angles.
The Community is meant as a venue for free, constructive and mutually respectful exchanges – not to battle over principled, entrenched views or positions, but rather to explore how those might be circumvented, overcome, or resolved.
Overall balance between contributions
Overall, there should be sufficient balance among the various inputs delivered, for instance between tax administration and taxpayer perspectives, or between interests of MNEs, SMEs and individual taxpayers, respectively. An editorial board may be appointed for this purpose, providing advice or guidance from time to time, or at request, on, among others, issues it specifically wishes to recommend for consideration.
Digital and physical exchanges
While Community participants are anticipated to have their exchanges primarily through digital means, it is envisaged that they may as well meet physically from time to time, at regional or general conferences to be held for this purpose.
Practical significance
The Community’s outputs should motivate and assist stakeholders in improving mechanisms presently used for international tax dispute resolution or adopting new, innovative approaches. Ideally, this should deliver a set of alternative formats ready for use in practice, adapted so as to be able to serve diverse needs, levels of technical development, or cultures.
Independence
The Community is independent. Likewise do all its participants retain their individual independence, and individual authorship and responsibility for their inputs. Any inputs exchanged within the Community are available only to registered participants.
Access to the Community is free of any charge, and only takes a simple registration with the Tribute secretariat, which is available also to take in any questions or requests for more detailed information.