Greece, Hungary, Iceland fall short of tax dispute resolution goals, OECD review finds

By Doug Connolly, MNE Tax

Iceland has no bilateral advance pricing agreement (APA) program in place, and Greece, Hungary, and the Slovak Republic are failing to timely resolve mutual agreement procedure (MAP) cases, according to OECD peer review reports issued May 25.

The reports cover the latest round of peer reviews of jurisdictions’ implementation of the minimum standard for making dispute resolution more effective under the OECD’s base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project. The other jurisdictions reviewed in the latest round were Estonia, Romania, Slovenia, and Turkey.

Iceland’s lack of a bilateral APA program means it fell short of the minimum standard for preventing tax disputes. Romania’s APA program was also dinged, although not for lack of a program, but for not allowing roll-backs of bilateral APAs.

Meanwhile, Greece, Hungary, and the Slovak Republic failed to hit the target for resolution of MAP cases, because they took on average 35, 45, and 38 months, respectively, to resolve MAP cases. The goal is to resolve MAP cases in 24 months or less.  

All the countries mostly met the target for availability of and access to MAP. However, Estonia, Greece, Iceland, and Romania were flagged for not having in place a documented bilateral process for situations when the competent authority considers the taxpayer’s objection in a MAP request to not be justified.

On the other hand, Slovenia and Turkey both broadly succeeded in meeting the minimum standard targets relating to the prevention of tax disputes, availability and access to MAP, MAP resolution, and MAP implementation.