The OECD released its first recommendations for a co-ordinated international approach to combat tax avoidance by multinational enterprises.
The recommendations, under the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project, are designed to create a single set of international tax rules to end the erosion of tax bases and the artificial shifting of profits to jurisdictions to avoid paying tax.
The first 7 elements of the Action Plan released today focus on helping countries to:
- ensure the coherence of corporate income taxation at the international level, through new model tax and treaty provisions to neutralise hybrid mismatch arrangements (Action 2);
- realign taxation and relevant substance to restore the intended benefits of international standards and to prevent the abuse of tax treaties (Action 6);
- assure that transfer pricing outcomes are in line with value creation, through actions to address transfer pricing issues in the key area of intangibles (Action 8);
- improve transparency for tax administrations and increase certainty and predictability for taxpayers through improved transfer pricing documentation and a template for country-by-country reporting (Action 13);
- address the challenges of the digital economy (Action 1);
- facilitate swift implementation of the BEPS actions through a report on the feasibility of developing a multilateral instrument to amend bilateral tax treaties (Action 15); and
- counter harmful tax practices (Action 5).
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