The OECD International VAT/GST Guidelines: past and future developments

Alain Charlet is an attorney-at-law. He is working as an independent expert for the IMF drafting VAT and mining codes in West African and Caribbean countries. He teaches at the Catholic University of Lyon (France) and is working on tax policy issues in collaboration with the Université de Sherbrooke (Canada). He is a member of the OECD Technical Advisory Group on Consumption Taxes and of the BIAC (Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD). Prior to that, he worked for two and a half years in the Consumption Taxes Unit of the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration. From 2002 to 2008 he worked as a tax lawyer for Arthur Andersen International and Landwell & Associés, the correspondent law firm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Stéphane Buydens is VAT Policy Advisor at the Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, OECD. He also teaches VAT at the Catholic University of Lyon (France). He is the author of the OECD biennial publication Consumption Tax Trends. Any views expressed in this article are those of the authors only and should not be taken as representing the position of the OECD.