Inside observations on the BEPS Project

The BEPS package was unveiled on October 5 2015 and endorsed by the G20 finance ministers at their meeting a few days later in Lima and by the G20 leaders at their November summit in Antalya. A little more than two years earlier, the OECD and G20 countries embarked on a significant re-write of the international tax rules to ensure that profits are taxed where economic activities are carried out and value is created. The BEPS package comprises reports on each of the 15 actions identified in the BEPS Action Plan, which was released in July 2013 and on the basis of which the BEPS Project was launched in September of that year. In this overview article David Bradbury, Achim Pross, Marlies de Ruiter, and Raffaele Russo take stock of what has been achieved over the last two years and look to the new challenges ahead. The following articles contain a detailed overview of each of the 15 actions.