European Union

In a wide-ranging interview, ITR speaks to Terri LaRae, partner and leader of the global operations transformation tax team at Deloitte, about the factors driving tax transformation and how tax departments can get the best out of it.

Tax transparency and governance has moved up in the hierarchy of key topics and risks for the C-suite to monitor and manage. Tax has changed from simply just being in the exclusive realm of the tax director and being a compliance concern for multinationals, to becoming the more consequential strategic matter it is today. How you communicate on where and how you pay your taxes, and what your narrative is in terms of tax strategy and corporate social responsibility, has become increasingly important. This is due to the large increase in tax transparency requirements that have been mandated at international, EU and national levels. This trend started in 2012 and has intensified since revelations such as 'LuxLeaks', as well as the Panama and Paradise Papers. However, there are still quite a few CEOs, CFOs and tax directors – as well as tax advisors and others – who expect that the current transparency drive will soon blow over post-BEPS. So which one is it for tax transparency? Are we at the beginning of the end, or at the end of the beginning?

On September 12 2018, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker delivered his 2018 State of the European Union (EU) address at the European Parliament. Accompanying his speech were a number of more detailed policy documents, the most important of which was the Letter of Intent from Juncker and First VP Frans Timmermans to the presidents of the European Parliament and the Austrian EU Council presidency.