{"id":20610,"date":"2013-05-09T09:28:07","date_gmt":"2013-05-09T08:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=20610"},"modified":"2013-05-09T09:28:07","modified_gmt":"2013-05-09T08:28:07","slug":"why-are-ernst-young-wilfully-misrepresenting-country-by-country-reporting-could-it-be-theyre-frightened-of-the-ngo-demands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/05\/09\/why-are-ernst-young-wilfully-misrepresenting-country-by-country-reporting-could-it-be-theyre-frightened-of-the-ngo-demands\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are Ernst & Young wilfully misrepresenting country-by-country reporting? Could it be they’re frightened of the NGO demands?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I said yesterday<\/a> that I had not had time to read the full\u00a0Ernst & Young report<\/a> on\u00a0country-by-country reporting. Now I have, and it is, in a very real sense, a very sorry document.<\/p>\n

It's motive is clear. As they put it:<\/p>\n

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This is a fight back against the transparency civil society is demanding of global businesses. And there is some considerable paranoia that they are already losing this debate inherent in their report:<\/p>\n

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But they're not\u00a0optimistic:<\/p>\n

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I am explicit: all those last points are really welcome. Indeed, they're needed. But they're not an alternative to\u00a0country-by-country reporting. They are required as well.<\/p>\n

There's something else that's also required, and that is honesty on the part of\u00a0Ernst & Young, and this report is short on it. That's\u00a0particularly\u00a0true on a quite essential issue, which is what\u00a0country-by-country reporting really is.\u00a0Ernst & Young say this:<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>With respect to them, they must know that's not true. In fact, it's so far from the truth it is absurd. To give credit where it is due, PWC\u00a0recognised\u00a0this\u00a0last year when they issued a report entitled 'Tax\u00a0transparency\u00a0and\u00a0country-by-country reporting'. In there they correctly noted that\u00a0country-by-country reporting required the following:<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>And they properly added these notes:<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

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Now there's not a shadow of a doubt that\u00a0they\u00a0got that from my work: all the references on sources of\u00a0information\u00a0on\u00a0country-by-country reporting in their report were to reports written by me. But\u00a0Ernst & Young ignore\u00a0this\u00a0work, entirely. Instead they are setting up a straw man version of\u00a0country-by-country reporting. In the process they are, of course, trying to entirely sideline in this debate those who have driven the call for\u00a0country-by-country reporting - which is the\u00a0Tax Justice Network and the NGO community.<\/p>\n

Country-by-country reporting is not just about tax reporting, important as that is. I explain ten reasons for\u00a0country-by-country reporting here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And this is, no\u00a0doubt\u00a0part\u00a0of their policy. By trying to restrict debate to a single issue they hope to increase their chances of beating\u00a0country-by-country reporting. Their aim is simple: they want global capital to roam free and unaccountable;\u00a0country-by-country reporting would prevent that and they see very real risk that it is on its way. But this has to be\u00a0challenged.\u00a0Ernst & Young are wrong to make their claim. Those who want\u00a0country-by-country reporting have to say so.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I said yesterday that I had not had time to read the full\u00a0Ernst & Young report on\u00a0country-by-country reporting. Now I have, and it is, in
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-country-by-country"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20610\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}