A/HRC/31/61
owed to them; to introduce public country-by-country reporting for extractive companies;
and to address the issue of misuse of shell companies to facilitate illicit financial flows.53
68.
In July 2014, OECD and the Group of 20 published a new global standard for
automatic exchange of tax information, providing for the exchange of non-resident
financial account information with the tax authorities in the account holder’s country of
residence. As at 30 October 2015, 96 countries had committed themselves to implementing
the standard to automatically exchange tax information by end of 2018.54
69.
OECD was also tasked by the Group of Eight and Group of 20 Finance Ministers
with developing an Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit-Shifting, published in July
2013, containing 15 specific actions to address a range of issues relating to tax
transparency, accountability and information exchange. The final package of reforms was
endorsed by the Group of 20 Finance Ministers in Lima on 8 October 2015, and
subsequently presented to the Group of 20 leaders during their summit in Antalya, Turkey,
on 15 and 16 November 2015. The leaders called on OECD to develop a framework for
monitoring the implementation of the base erosion and profit-shifting project by 2016 and
to encourage all countries and jurisdictions, including developing countries, to participate in
it. While that project includes country-by-country reporting by transnational corporations as
one of its action points, it requires that this information be provided only to the home tax
authority of those corporations and not that it be made publicly available. Other countries
will likely be able to access that information only through official treaty requests, which
will make it more difficult for developing country tax authorities to access the information
and will prevent public scrutiny.
Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation
70.
The Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation is
a group of leaders from around the world that aims to promote the reform of the
international corporate tax system. The Commission met in New York on 18 and 19 March
2015 and launched its Declaration55 in Trento, Italy, in June 2015. In its preamble, the
Declaration states:
With the conviction that our system of taxing the global profits of transnational
corporations is broken and that the rules and institutions governing the international
corporate tax system must change, we have formed an Independent Commission for
the Reform of International Corporate Taxation. As a Commission, we have
concluded that proposals to reform the current system are clearly insufficient, and
the institutions promoting international tax cooperation are not inclusive enough.
The Declaration provides 34 reform proposals in six different areas “to ensure the creation
of an international tax system that works for all people.” One of its key recommendations is
to tax transnational corporations conducting business activities across international borders
with subsidiaries in different jurisdictions as single firms.
53
54
55
18
See www.gov.uk/government/publications/g8-action-plan-principles-to-prevent-the-misuse-ofcompanies-and-legal-arrangements/g8-action-plan-principles-to-prevent-the-misuse-of-companiesand-legal-arrangements.
See www.oecd.org/newsroom/global-forum-on-tax-transparency-pushes-forward-international-cooperation-against-tax-evasion.htm.
Available from www.icrict.org/declaration/.