The Case for Making Country-by-Country Reporting Public
26/06/2016
Finalised in October 2015, the BEPS project is certainly an
improvement over the status quo, but it shied away from a more
ambitious reform of the international tax system, was conceived at
the price of increased complexity, and its effectiveness was
curtailed by a rather strict adherence to business
confidentiality.
Strict confidentiality between tax administrations and MNE
taxpayers that keeps the public in the dark is a costly trade-off
that unfortunately runs throughout the package, but nowhere is this
more pronounced than in what is possibly the most revolutionary
aspect of the entire BEPS project - the new country-by-country
(C-b-C) reporting standard.
This paper takes a closer look at the OECD’s BEPS Action 13
C-b-C reporting standard, lists both sides of the argument on
whether it should be made public or not, compares the BEPS
framework with existing C-b-C reporting regimes that have been
deemed fit for public disclosure in a majority of OECD
jurisdictions, and concludes that the benefits of public C-b-C
reporting far surpass any potential risks...
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Finalisé en octobre 2015, le
Projet BEPS constitue une avancée certaine par rapport au statu
quo. Pourtant, ce projet de réforme du système fiscal international
aurait pu être plus ambitieux et moins complexe. En effet, le Plan
d’action BEPS est dans son ensemble très encadré par une
interprétation très stricte du secret des affaires et du devoir de
confidentialité.
La confidentialité absolue dans les échanges entre les
administrations fiscales et les entreprises multinationales est
ainsi érigée en principe fondamental. Il pose problème notamment
pour le nouveau cadre de reporting pays par pays, point clé du Plan
d’action BEPS.
Ce document examine de plus près la norme de déclaration pays par
pays de l’Action 13 du Plan « BEPS » de l’OCDE et du G20 sur
l’optimisation fiscales par les entreprises multinationales. Il
recense les arguments pour et contre la publication du reporting
pays par pays, il compare aussi le cadre de reporting adopté par le
plan BEPS aux régimes de déclaration publique existants dans une
majorité des juridictions de l'OCDE. Le projet conclut que les
avantages de la publication des déclarations pays par pays sont
largement supérieurs aux éventuels risques qu’elle entraîne.
Links:
- 27/06/2016| The G20/OECD Base Erosion and Profit
Shifting Package - Assessment by the TUAC Secretariat
- 14/04/2016 | Panama Papers: the need for tougher
OECD tax transparency standards & public country-by-country
reporting
- 06/10/2015 | Final OECD/G20 BEPS Package is
historic, but comes with a price tag: Strict business
confidentiality and increased complexity
- 24/09/2015| TUAC List of tax jurisdictions
at-risk
- 13/05/2015| TUAC meeting on Corporate Tax
Planning, 20 March 2015
- 27/01/2015| Submission to the “Bureau Plus” of the
OECD Committee on Fiscal Affairs
- 13/11/2014| Better late than never: the OECD takes
measures to facilitate developing countries’ participation in the
G20 BEPS Action Plan on tax avoidance
- 10/11/2014| Unions Push for Tax Responsibility in
Pension Funds
- 02/10/2014| OECD Mid-Term Reports on the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action Plan - Comments by TUAC
- 16/09/2014| OECD Reports on Tax Avoidance: Encouraging Progress, but More Needs to be Done
- 23/06/2014| Submission to the OECD Committee on
Fiscal Affairs
- 20/12/2013| Report on a global unions meeting on
corporate tax planning