MNC taxation: let’s have country-by-country reporting now
Accountancy Age has reported that:
Multi-national companies would be prepared to open their books, on an anonymised basis, to convince the Treasury to introduce a tax exemption for inbound dividends.
The issue of the exemption is at the heart of a debate on taxing multi-nationals foreign subsidiaries. The Treasury wants to drop the taxes on inbound dividends to help simplify company structures, but is worried there will be large scale tax avoidance as a result.
A poll by PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that 80% of companies would be open to providing information on their affairs as part of an impact assessment.
90% of them were in favour of the dividend exemption, PwC added.
Oh, no, I say. Let’s get real here. There are two important messages in this:
1) HM Revenue & Customs do not know the structure of the MNCs they tax
2) Those multinationals have no intention of telling them.
So why, oh why, aren’t HM Revenue & Customs coming out strongly in support of country-by-country reporting which would give them most of what they want? It’s in their power to do so. Readers at 100 Parliament Street please note.
