PRAKARSA - ASEAN Tax incentive research Countries in the ASEAN region have been competing to offer tax incentives, exemptions and tax holidays to investors, mainly multi-national corporations. These redundant and harmful tax practices do not only erode the tax base but also contribute to higher inequality as less resources are available for essential services or are sought with higher indirect taxes.
Harmful tax competition needs to be tackled at national level but also at regional level. As such this paper seeks to feed national and regionaladvocacy and campaigning efforts against redundant and harmful tax practices with focus on the use of tax incentives, framed in overall discourse of rising inequality and the role of fiscal policies in addressing inequality.
The report should also help in initiating a political discussion at ASEAN level on the matter during the chairmanship of Vietnam in 2020 .
Primary audience:
# National governments in ASEAN and ASEAN secretariat
# Regional and national media
Secondary audience:
# CSOs in the country campaigning or working on fair tax monitoring
# International institutions like WB, IMF, ADB and OECD
Tertiary audience:
# General public, through social media and campaigning activities based on content from the paper.
ASEAN member countries haveachieved sustained economic growth and reduced poverty in recent years. But this has come with rising inequality and leaving behind many poor people in almost all ASEAN countries. One of the powerful tools in addressing rich-poor divide is public spending on essential services and social protection, which requires additional resources.
While not investing in social services, ASEAN countries  lose resources and budget revenue from tax competition and tax incentives among member governments which could have redistributed unpaid care work and helped more poor and vulnerable people, especially girls and women, have better education, health care, and social protection to tackle inequalities.
We call upon ASEAN governments to end this worst form of inequality by doing a better coordination among ASEAN country members. This action aims to stoptax competition and eliminate redundant and harmful tax practices, and instead increase investment in public services such as health, education, social protection and redistribution of unpaid care work to effectively tackle rising inequality in ASEAN.
1. Abstract(no more than 150 words)
- Key message(s): key fact/conclusion we want people to know on tax incentives in ASEAN member states and its link with rising economic inequality in the region
2. Summary, including recommendations (1000 words)
- To provide the overview of tax incentives policy among ASEAN countries and how is jeopardizing fight against poverty and inequality
- To summary key findings on redundantand harmful tax practices in ASEAN with focus on tax incentives
-    To suggest recommendations on tackling issues on tax competition - #racing to the bottom# among ASEAN countries and redundant tax incentives in each country and offer of suggestionsonwhere the money should be invested to reduce inequality/ensure no one leave behind in the SDG agenda 2030 promoted by ASEAN government and community.


3. Introduction (background):
To give economic dynamics among ASEAN, the role of fair tax on tackling inequality and public spending for health, education, social protection and redistribution of unpaid care work, debates on harmful tax practices in attracting FDI and business# promotion in developing countries.
We may use Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index (CRII), analysis from ADB, Oxfam and OECD; data from OECD, World Development Indicators of World Bank to produce the background.
Besides, wemight also refer the ASEAN#s priorities in 2020 as cohesive and responsive ASEAN which means unity,solidarity and work toward a #people-centered# community; effective operation and better serving  the people# to make the report more relevant to context.

4. Tax incentives in ASEAN countries
The research team builds a research protocol to investigate the practical use of tax incentives and redundancy of tax incentives in each ASEAN country, or which type of incentives should be removed to tackle inequality. These country reports will be complied and consolidated to capture the following issues:
a. Brief update on economic inequality in each country despite political commitment and how fiscal distributive policies could be key to address inequality
b. Screening the use of tax incentive instruments and tax incentive competition among ASEAN
c. Pointing out redundant and harmful tax practices focusing tax incentives via evidence from secondary data
d. Case studies on impacts of tax incentives, highlighting how these tax incentives impact budgetrevenue, progressive budget spending to tackle inequality
Besides, reports from ADB, Oxfam and OECD# recently published are used asreferences for analysis. Case studies for harmful tax practices with focus on tax incentives can be investigated to further the evidence
4.1.  Screening tax incentives (tentatively in all ten countries in ASEAN)
We consolidate information on tax incentives in thecountry reports to analyze the use of tax incentive instruments and tax incentive competition among ASEAN and point out redundant and harmful tax practices in ASEAN

4.2. Coordination among ASEAN countries
Discuss opportunities and challenges on mechanisms on stopping unproductive and harmful tax practices.
We can consider provide case studies like Indonesia and Vietnam compete to attract Samsung# in this section,and use OECD tax reform as an opportunity to influence ASEAN countries

4.3. Case studies on harmful tax practices in ASEAN
We use information from county reports to produce evidence on this section. These case studies should link up or compare the cost of harmful tax practices with the provision of essential services and social protection
5. Recommendations
Recommendations on
-  National policies on reducing harmful tax practices
-  Regional mechanisms, especially coordination among ASEAN countries,on tackling tax competition and harmful tax practices.
-  Sectors and activities which the ASEAN countries# state budget should be invested to reduce inequality and ensure no one is left behind in the SDG agenda 2030 promoted by ASEAN government and community as mentioned before.
PRAKARSA will be leading country engagement, research in Indonesia and engagement of the TAFJA and lobbying with relevance national ministries and support the influencing toward ASEAN secretariat