Further to the work of the OECD in the framework of the BEPS project, the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs and Legal Affairs (ECON/JURI) committee members adopted on Monday 12 June 2017 their joint report on the EU Commission’s draft public CbCR Directive (The consolidated committee report is not yet published, but should be available at short notice). Consequently, multinational companies with an annual turnover of at least EUR 750 million will be required to publicly report their tax bills on a country-by-country basis with the aim to increase tax transparency.
However, a safeguard clause was introduced with possible exemption for companies from disclosure on the grounds of “commercial sensitivity”, which will be monitored, reviewed and renewable by the EU Commission on an annual basis. Further, also extension of public CbCR to non-EU countries was included in the proposal.
The public CbCR proposal was approved by 38 votes to 9 votes and no less than 36 abstentions. Countries that voted against the EU Commission’s public CbCR proposal were a.o. Austria, Cyprus, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Malta and Sweden.
The next step will be that the ECON/JURI committee report will be put to a confirmation vote in the EU Parliament’s Plenary Session whereby new amendments to the report are possible.
For previous coverage in this respect, we refer to our previous news post dd. 13 April 2016 and dd. 28 April 2016.
For more insights on CbCR and to understand the implications for your organisation, please contact Jonas Van de Gucht.
