Heads of Tax Administrations Take Big Step Forward In Global Tax Co-Operation

The OECD/G20 BEPS Project sets out 15 key actions to reform the international tax framework and ensure that profits are reported where economic activities are carried out and value created. The BEPS Project delivers solutions for governments to close the gaps in existing international rules that allow corporate profits to “disappear” or be artificially shifted to low or no tax environments, where companies have little or no economic activity.

Delivering on the OECD/G20 international tax agenda, through implementation of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project and the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) for the automatic exchange of financial account information, took center stage when heads of tax administrations met on 11-13 May in Beijing, People’s Republic of China.

Participants from forty-nine delegations, including international and regional tax organizations, committed to continued international co-operation in order to tackle offshore tax evasion and work towards a fairer and more transparent international tax system at the Tenth Meeting of the OECD Forum on Tax Administration (FTA).

Specifically, the discussions focused on three interlocking themes:

effective implementation of the OECD/G20 international tax agenda;
building modern tax administrations that effectively respond to the challenges and opportunities of an increasingly digital world; and
helping build capacity in tax administration so that all countries can benefit from the changes in the international tax landscape.

The following publications were also released at this event:

Tax Administrations and Capacity Building: A Collective Challenge
Technologies for Better Tax Administration: A Practical Guide for Revenue Bodies
Rethinking Tax Services: The Changing Role of Tax Service Providers in SME Tax Compliance
Advanced Analytics for Better Tax Administration: Putting Data to Work
Co-operative Tax Compliance: Building Better Tax Control Frameworks
At the occasion of the FTA meeting, Canada, Iceland, India, Israel, New Zealand and the People’s Republic of China all signed the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement for the automatic exchange of Country-by-Country reports (the “CbC MCAA”), which is based on Article 6 of the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters. The CbC MCAA allows all signatories to bilaterally and automatically exchange Country-by-Country Reports with each other, as contemplated by BEPS Action 13.

In addition, Israel and the Russian Federation joined the 80 current signatories to the CRS Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement (the “CRS MCAA”), the key international framework agreement for putting in place the automatic exchange of financial account information foreseen by the OECD Common Reporting Standard (CRS).

The FTA is the leading international body concerned with tax administration, bringing together the heads of tax administrations from OECD countries, members of the G20 and other emerging economies.