Joelle Jefferis
Stack was speaking at the Irish Tax Institute and the Ash Center at Harvard Kennedy School’s Global Tax conference in Dublin.
Last week Stack said that he “fully expects” the US to have finalised its CbCR provisions by July this year. At the conference he reiterated his country’s commitment to implementing CbCR, but warned the US wouldn’t exchange information if a country intends to make it public.
“In the US there will be no stepping back from CbCR,” said Stack, but continued with a warning: “If a country were to make that information public, the US would have the right in our agreements to stop sending that information.”
Stack had earlier in the day spoken on another panel with Valere Moutarlier, director of the Directorate General for Taxation and Customs at the European Commission (EC). Moutarlier had mentioned that the EC are reviewing whether to publish CbC reports, with the proposal on this due to be released in April.
“We resisted heavy pressure from many quarters to rush on this proposal and we’ve taken our time to find the right balance between a high degree of public transparency and protecting the competitive interest of companies,” said Moutarlier.
Tensions surrounding taxation have been growing in recent months between the US and the EU, particularly with the EC’s state aid investigations. Stack has publically condemned the state aid investigations as unfairly targeting US multinationals, but also highlighted at the conference that tensions were created by the view that a major driver of the BEPS project is to attack US multinationals.
So long as the EC doesn’t aim to publish the information, Stack remains hopeful that CbCR will be an effective tool and of use to the US and the EU.
“Companies appreciate that CbCR is a win for the long term. There will be an uneven period while we get on the track but I do expect the whole world to get on track,” said Stack.
