Sol Picciotto - Inspiration.

Abstract

I happened upon Sol’s name when reading some now forgotten article in Tax Notes International about a decade ago. At the time, I had been writing and communicating on my own with people at the OECD who had just started up the initial BEPS process. I had the personal satisfaction of being listened to (including an hour’s phone discussion), but definitely no satisfaction from seeing any of my golden thoughts reflected in the mid-2013 BEPS Action Plan.

After about a half year of corresponding on a few tax and other matters, Sol introduced the BEPS Monitoring Group (BMG) to me and asked whether I might be interested in joining the group. Being retired (though periodically teaching in a Tax LLM program as an adjunct), I responded:

Due to my retired status and our periodically being out of touch with things when we take off on our bicycles, I'm not sure how dependable I can be or how much I can contribute, but I am very happy to help out when I can.

That started my active participation in some high percentage of the BMG’s output over the past decade. Prior to joining the BMG, as noted above, I had been involved individually corresponding and speaking with the OECD about the BEPS project’s direction.