Carol Doran Klein

Carol Doran Klein is USCIB’s international tax counsel, managing the work of the Taxation Committee and representing member views on tax policies and initiatives to the US government and in various international forums.

The USCIB Tax Committee’s stated objective is: “to enhance the competitiveness of US business by promoting sound, appropriate and consistent international tax policy at home and abroad; eliminate obstacles to international trade and investment in US tax legislation and regulations; prevent and eliminate government policies and practices that result in double taxation”.

Founded in 1945 to promote an open world trading system, the USCIB now describes itself as “among the premier pro-trade, pro-market liberalisation organisations” and has a membership base of more than 300 multinational companies. The organisation serves as the US affiliate of the International Chamber of Commerce and the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD.

In a year that has seen large multilateral moves to tackle base erosion and profit shifting, Doran Klein has had her plate full in ensuring the concerns of US businesses are heard. And with multiple action items on the OECD’s BEPS Action Plan scheduled for completion in 2014, her influence will continue to be critical if the views of US business are to be heard in this international context.

Here, she talks about her achievements from the past year, and reveals her one step plan to solving the BEPS conundrum.

Carol Doran Klein: The most important thing that I do is to make our member companies aware of what is going on internationally (at the OECD, the UN and elsewhere) and provide them a forum for developing a response and providing input into those organisations. This is an ongoing process. I believe consistent input, particularly factual input on how business operates, can help decision-makers make better decisions.

CDK: I think there is a real risk that the efforts to improve documentation will result in an increased compliance burden. The OECD acknowledges that they do not have the ability to mandate documentation requirements. So, if the OECD suggests new documentation, there is no guarantee that the new documentation will not be in addition to, instead of in lieu of, the old documentation.

CDK: Please be principled. There is enormous pressure, particularly in the BEPS project, to find ways to impose tax on low-taxed corporate earnings. If the countries do not have a principled basis for imposing tax then it becomes more likely that countries may assert multiple inconsistent bases for imposing tax, which would inevitably lead to double or multiple taxation, which would be a dampener on foreign direct investment.

CDK: Consistency is very important to business because it permits business to anticipate the return on its investment and make investment decisions based on those anticipated returns. Obviously, anticipated returns are not always realised, but if tax is a significant cost and it is a question mark, then making sound business decisions is much more difficult, so of course consistency is important.

I also don’t believe in perfect-fit solutions. The world is far too complex for policymakers to design perfect-fit solutions. There will always be cases that were not considered and, therefore, do not fit into the “perfect-fit solutions”.

CDK: I think the BEPS issues would vanish if the corporate and shareholder tax could be integrated. That is the correct answer in theory: one level of tax imposed on individuals, at the individual rate. Unfortunately, I think this is a holy grail because it is extremely complex and is very difficult from a political perspective because you are taxing individuals on funds they are not currently receiving. But in theory, if you want to tax each thing once and not more than once, then taxing the individual shareholder currently on corporate earnings is the correct answer.

CDK: I think the OECD is making steps in this direction, so let’s see how this goes.

CDK: I think my goal in the USCIB Tax Committee is to make sure the decision-makers at the OECD and elsewhere have the information from business that they need to make principled decisions in moving forward on BEPS and other projects. I think we will be able to see if that happens if the work product coming out of the BEPS project reflects the way business is done.

Further reading

The OECD’s BEPS report: How did others react? House Ways & Means ignites debate on lower corporate tax rate

The Global Tax 50 2013
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