By Julie Martin, MNE Tax
The EU may soon take up the issue of whether country-by-country reports detailing the tax affairs of large multinationals should be made public.
Speaking today at a European Commission online tax event, German Federal Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz said the EU presidency will support debate and a decision-making process on the issue of public country-by-country reporting. Germany holds the rotating EU presidency through December 2020.
Scholz said that the EU presidency action would be taken even though the German government itself is split on the issue of public country-by-country reporting.
He also said that although there is strong support among EU countries for making the reports public, the process will not be easy.
“I think it is quite a difficult question because there are different views on this aspect, but it looks like a big majority of countries will support it. We are not there yet but, to my point my view, it is something that will be on the agenda of the decision-making process quite soon, and if the majority is what it looks like, we will have a decision – but is something that depends on many obstacles,” Scholz said.
Scholz also predicted that global agreement will be reached on pillar two minimum taxation through the OECD-led process. The EU will need to do a lot of work to implement the global deal, he said.
Scholz was less optimistic about global agreement on pillar one.
The EU should assume that no global solution will be reached and do as much work as possible this year, he said. That way, taxation at an EU level can be accomplished quickly next year, he said.
Scholz said that digital firms were the “winners” of the COVID-19 crisis, increasing their revenues substantially as companies were forced to operate online. He said that it is now “absolutely fair” to tax the digital giants.
Julie Martin
Julie Martin is the founder of MNE Tax. She edits the publication and regularly contributes articles on new developments in cross-border business taxation.
Julie has worked as a tax journalist and editor for more than 13 years. Prior to that, she worked as an in-house tax attorney in New York. She also holds an LLM in taxation from New York University School of Law.
Julie can be reached at [email protected].
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