fiscal reform that could threaten their privileges.75 The myth according to which low rates of corporate taxation are a condition for attracting foreign capital persists, despite the wealth of studies that have demonstrated the opposite -- that investors care more about the quality of the workforce and of public service, the quality of governance, and economic factors such as market size and trade openness. Some governments still do not accept the idea that the efforts of poor countries in combating tax evasion should be supported by rich countries, not only by ODA going to improving governance, but also by more structural measures concerning the removal of any loophole facilitating the practice of tax evasion. While tax evasion is criticized, at least rhetorically, tax optimization techniques and the widespread use of price transfer mechanisms by transnational corporations have only recently been evoked as a problem at the highest political level, leading to the adoption within the OECD of the action plan against base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS). It shall be the responsibility of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to continue to insist on such obstacles being removed, on such myths being dissipated, and on such pledges being kept. 75 See, e.g., Martin Gilens, Affluence & Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America (Princeton University Press, 2012); Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, 'Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups and Average Citizens", Perspectives on Politics, vol. 12(3) (2014), pp. 564-581. 21 CRIDHO Working Paper 2017/1