25/05/18

Ireland fulfils key BEPS requirements, says OECD

(RTÉ) -- Ireland has fulfilled all the minimum requirements for the introduction of "Country by Country" (CBC) tax reporting by large multinational companies.

This is a key part of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) process to clamp down on tax avoidance.

In the first peer group report on CBC - carried out by the OECD - Ireland was found to have introduced sufficient national laws to implement the requirements of BEPS Action 13 on sharing the tax information of big multinational corporations.

The information will be confidential to the tax authorities.

95 countries were looked at - there was no or insufficient information for 16 of them (mostly developing countries) - under three headings.

60 states were found to have sufficient domestic legal and administrative frameworks, 58 had exchange of information frameworks in place and 31 had appropriate use frameworks.

Ireland was found to have complied with all three headings, and the report recommended no follow up action.

According to the OECD, this year will see tax authorities in countries that have the correct legal frameworks in place receive details of the tax affairs of large multinational companies that do business in their countries.

This information was not previously available, and will allow tax authorities to better understand the business structures and the nature of the business being carried on in their states.

Under the country by country reporting rules, big multinationals will follow an OECD template to file their tax affairs, setting out their activities and profit flows for each country in which they operate.

These reports will then be sent to the relevant countries tax authorities, so they can see what is going on in their state.

This is particularly significant for Ireland, as it it home to a large number of multinational companies, many of them foreign owned - and so reporting their tax affairs in another jurisdiction.

The CBC reports will show

- the amount of revenue raised in each country

- the profit before corporate income tax

- the corporate income tax paid and accrued

- the number of employees

- the stated capital of the business

- retained earnings

- tangible assets

- the identity of each entity within a group doing business in each state, and the nature of the business it is carrying out.

The OECD is starting a second review process later this year.