EXCLUSIVE: OECD’s Saint-Amans discusses EC push to force MNEs to publish CbCR data on their websites

The latest proposal, outlined on Tuesday after a week of pressure following the release of the Panama Papers, puts European Commissioners at loggerheads with the OECD, which does not advocate public disclosure of CbCR.

Pascal Saint-Amans, OECD director of tax policy and administration, spoke exclusively TP Week in an interview on Tuesday:

•  “The agreement reached by the OECD along with the 44 other countries is that the reporting should go from one tax administration to another tax administration. The EU wants to go further and what we noticed is that the publicity in the reports will be limited to the transactions that occur within the EU and not beyond because all the other transactions will be grouped into one line which will be interesting, I’m not sure how much usefulness they will have from that. I don’t know how useful this will be but it will depend on how the EU plans to propose it.”

• “It’s not the largely public CbCR for everybody and it’s limited to the EU, it goes beyond the agreement from the OECD, but in a sense that is not too contradictory of what was agreed at the OECD.”

• “To the extent that it is limited to transaction occurring within the EU I’m not sure it’s that big of a deal. Not too concerned is maybe the right assessment.”

• On whether this is unilateral action away from BEPS: “I’m pretty sure some countries like the US will think so."