Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) news update
Progress on eliminating harmful tax practices
The OECD has released a new report looking at the extent of compliance with the standard on harmful tax practices and alignment of taxation with substance in preferential regimes. The assessment of preferential tax regimes is part of ongoing implementation of Action 5 under the OECD/G20 base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project, with assessments conducted by the Forum on Harmful Tax Practices (FHTP).
The report shows significant improvements; for example, there were 44 jurisdictions that have now delivered on their commitment to make legislative changes to abolish or amend harmful regimes, such that all those identified in the 2015 report are now considered to be ‘not harmful’. The FHTP has now reviewed some 255 regimes since the start of the BEPS project.
More information about the BEPS Action 5 peer review and monitoring process can be viewed here.
New corporate tax statistics database
The OECD has launched a new corporate tax statistics database, with the aim of collating a range of information to support the study of corporate tax policy and help with related analysis work.
The database compiles both new data items and statistics already collected and stored by the OECD. The first edition of the database contains four main categories of data:
- Corporate tax revenues
- Statutory corporate income tax rates
- Corporate effective tax rates
- Tax incentives related to innovation
Future editions will also include aggregated and anonymised statistics of data collected under the BEPS Action 13 Country-by-Country Reports.
The new database can be accessed here.
Cooperation with South African and Dutch authorities
The OECD, South African Revenue Service (SARS) and National Treasury of South Africa (National Treasury) have agreed to continue their long-standing collaboration on taxation by signing a new Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) covering the three years to December 2023. The MoC extends previous cooperation in promoting a fair and efficient tax system and administration and strengthening and modernising international taxation areas by the sharing of experience.
Meanwhile, representatives from the OECD and the Centre for Tax Policy and Administration met with State Secretary for Finance of the Netherlands in Paris recently to discuss cooperation on international taxation, particularly tax evasion. The meeting comes at a time of ongoing tax reform in the Netherlands, with recent government measures implemented to combat BEPS.
This article was posted on Baker Tilly International Global Office website, and posted with their approval.
