World Tax Authority: Taking harmonisation to the next level

Recent attempts at tax harmonisation have struggled to take off. In Europe enhanced cooperation measures are being invoked because of the inability to find consensus. But what fate awaits the notion of a World Tax Authority (WTA)? Would it take tax harmonisation to the next level or, like the Europe-wide language of Esperanto, is this attempt at harmonisation doomed to fail? Matthew Gilleard analyses what has motivated discussion of such a concept and looks at the barriers to implementation.