Almost all countries levy general consumption taxes i.e. taxes on the sale of most goods and services to consumers. In the vast majority of those countries, this tax is a VAT i.e. a tax collected at all stages of the processes of production and distribution of goods and services, accumulation of the tax being prevented by allowing businesses to deduct the tax they incur on their inputs from the tax they collect on their outputs. A minority of countries apply retail sales taxes, i.e. single-stage taxes on goods and services supplied to final consumers. All OECD countries levy VAT, except the United States, where resale sales taxes are levied at sub-national level (see ).

We, the high-level officials of 104 jurisdictions and international organisations worldwide, gathered at the third meeting of the OECD Global Forum on VAT (the Global Forum) in Paris on 5-6 November 2015 to examine the progress made towards completion of the OECD International VAT/GSTValue Added Taxes (VAT) are also referred to as Goods and Services Tax (GST) in many jurisdictions. For ease of reading, this statement hereafter refers to VAT to cover all value added taxes, by whatever name, in whatever language, they are known.Guidelines (the Guidelines) as a global standard to address issues of double taxation and unintended non-taxation in the application of VAT to international trade.