I wrote the first version of country-by-country reporting for multinational corporations that are public interest entities in 2003. That can be found here.

Now Australia plans to introduce a full version of mandatory public country-by-country reporting for its companies of this type. It will be the first country in. the world to do so on such a comprehensive basis (although I note that opt-outs are still possible, and I have lodged an objection to these, as I know others have). To date, there have been limited versions in the EU and much more comprehensive versions for tax, but Australia is pushing beyond that.

The Australian consultation is here.

The requirement is that companies publish:

This is almost uncannily like my original suggestion. It has taken 20 years but it is good to see country-by-country reporting finally getting the full light of day. I hope more countries follow.

With this data we can hold multinational corporations to account for their actions worldwide, including in tax havens, and that is exactly what I always intended.