Harmful Tax Practices – 2017 Peer Review Reports on the Exchange of Information on Tax Rulings

Chapter 1. The review of the BEPS Action 5 standard on the exchange of information on certain tax rulings

Overview of the peer review on the exchange of information on tax rulings

1.  The 2015 Action 5 Report, Countering Harmful Tax Practices More Effectively, Taking Into Account Transparency and Substance (Action 5 Report, OECD, 2015) is one of the four BEPS minimum standards. It involves two distinct aspects: a review of certain preferential tax regimes to ensure they are not harmful, and a framework for the exchange of information on tax rulings (“the transparency framework”). Each of the four BEPS minimum standards is subject to peer review in order to ensure timely and accurate implementation and thus safeguard the level playing field. All members of the Inclusive Framework on BEPS commit to implementing the Action 5 minimum standard and to participating in the peer review, on an equal footing. The peer review of the Action 5 minimum standard is undertaken by the Forum on Harmful Tax Practices (“FHTP”) and approved by the Inclusive Framework on BEPS.

2.  The purpose of a peer review is to ensure the effective and consistent implementation of an agreed standard and to recognise progress made by jurisdictions in this regard. The peer review evaluates the implementation of the standard against an agreed set of criteria. These criteria are set out in terms of reference, which include each of the elements that a jurisdiction needs to demonstrate it has fulfilled in order to show proper implementation of the standard.1

3.  The peer review has been conducted in accordance with the agreed methodology. The methodology sets out the process for undertaking the peer review, including the process for collecting the relevant data, the preparation and approval of annual reports, the outputs of the review and the follow up process.

4.  The terms of reference and agreed methodology do not alter the Action 5 minimum standard. Any terms used in the terms of reference or methodology take their meaning from the language and context of the Action 5 Report (OECD, 2015) and the references therein. Any terms in this report which are not included in the glossary take their meaning from the language and context of the Action 5 Report (OECD, 2015).

Outline of the key aspects assessed in the annual report

5.  This annual report contains the findings of the second annual peer review of jurisdictions’ compliance with the transparency framework, conducted over the course of 2018. Where the first annual peer review covered 44 jurisdictions (i.e. OECD and G20 countries and the countries that were in the OECD accession process throughout the BEPS project), this second review covers 92 jurisdictions, including 48 Inclusive Framework members and Jurisdictions of Relevance identified by the Inclusive Framework which have undergone the peer review process for the first time. The second annual peer review process assesses the implementation of the transparency framework during the 1 January 2017 – 31 December 2017 period.

6.  One of the terms of reference is related to confidentiality (ToR III). Each jurisdiction that receives information on rulings under the transparency framework should ensure that the information received is kept confidential. The confidentiality aspect is reviewed by making sure that the international information exchange mechanisms being used by the jurisdictions include a confidentiality provision that restricts the use of information on rulings and there is the necessary domestic law and information security practices in place to give effect to such restrictions. Given its expertise in this area, the reviews of confidentiality in connection with the transparency framework defer to the work of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (“Global Forum”) in connection with the standard on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information for Tax Purposes. The outcomes of that work are not published and no further references to the review of confidentiality are made in this peer review document.

7.  Where a jurisdiction has not been assessed by the Global Forum, they have been requested to complete the standard confidentiality and data safeguards questionnaire used as the basis of those assessments, and this has been made available to FHTP members to inform their decision as to which jurisdictions it should exchange with.

8.  The reports on each reviewed jurisdiction published herein cover each of the aspects of the terms of reference, except for confidentiality, which are broken down into three elements. A fourth element applies to jurisdictions which offer IP regimes. These capture the key elements of the transparency framework which are briefly described below.

A. The information gathering process

9.  This involves assessing the processes in place in each of the jurisdictions for identifying past and future rulings that fall within the scope of the transparency framework, and for each of these rulings, identifying the jurisdictions with which the information should be exchanged. With respect to past rulings which do not contain information to identify those jurisdictions for which the tax rulings would be relevant, the jurisdiction issuing the ruling should apply the “best efforts approach” to try to identify this information. The review of the information gathering process also covers any supervision mechanism that the jurisdiction has in place to ensure that all relevant information is captured adequately.

B. The exchange of information

10.  The exchange of information requires the legal and administrative framework to be in place to allow spontaneous exchange of information on the relevant tax rulings and subsequent exchange of the relevant rulings where a valid exchange of information request is received. Information on past rulings was to be spontaneously exchanged pursuant to the relevant deadline outlined in each jurisdiction’s report. Information on future rulings is to be spontaneously exchanged as soon as possible and no later than three months after the date on which the ruling becomes available to the Competent Authority for exchange of information. The exchange of information should occur in the agreed standardised form, either using the template contained in Annex C of the Action 5 Report (OECD, 2015), or the OECD XML Schema. Adequate completion of the summary section in the Annex C template or the OECD XML Schema should be ensured through adherence to the instruction sheet to the summary section or the internal FHTP suggested guidance, or an alternate process that allows the summary section to contain sufficient detail for the receiving jurisdiction’s tax administration to appropriately assess the potential base erosion and profit shifting risks posed by the ruling where applicable.

11.  The peer review includes reviewing (i) that there is a sufficient domestic and international legal framework for the exchange information related to rulings; (ii) that the templates for information on rulings being exchanged are complete and in the appropriate form; and (iii) that the systems are in place to ensure that information on rulings is transmitted to the jurisdiction’s Competent Authority for exchange of information without undue delay and exchanged with relevant jurisdictions in accordance with the appropriate timelines.

12.  The Action 5 Report (OECD, 2015) acknowledged that some jurisdictions may need to put in place the domestic or international legal framework in order to comply with the obligations under Action 5. In such cases the timelines for exchange of information on rulings are subject to a jurisdiction’s legal framework.

13.  With respect to the international exchange of information, the terms of reference required jurisdictions to exchange information with Inclusive Framework members being reviewed for the same year, to the extent that an exchange of information agreement was in force for such exchanges and subject to the recipient jurisdiction demonstrating that it would keep the information received confidential.2

C. Statistics

14.  Each jurisdiction is required to report statistics on the exchange of information under the transparency framework including (i) the total number of spontaneous exchanges sent, (ii) the number of spontaneous exchanges under each category of ruling and (iii) a list of jurisdictions with which the information was exchanged for each type of ruling.

D. Exchange of information on IP regimes

15.  The review of the transparency framework also includes a review of the spontaneous exchanges of information which are required to occur in respect of certain features of IP regimes, as set out in the Action 5 “nexus approach.” This includes identifying and exchanging information on new entrants benefitting from grandfathered IP regimes (regardless of whether a ruling is provided), taxpayers which benefit from the third category of IP assets, and taxpayers making use of the option to treat the nexus ratio as a rebuttable presumption. This aspect of the review is only relevant for those jurisdictions which offer IP regimes, and the minimum standard does not require any jurisdiction to introduce such a regime.

Response to the report

16.  Jurisdictions had the option to include a response to the report and update on recent developments which occurred after the 2017 year in review. Where included, this reflects the individual jurisdiction’s views, and not those of the FHTP or the OECD Secretariat.

References

OECD (2017), BEPS Action 5 on Harmful Tax Practices – Terms of Reference and Methodology for the Conduct of the Peer Reviews of the Action 5 Transparency Framework, OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project, OECD, Paris. www.oecd.org/tax/beps/beps-action-5-harmful-tax-practices-peer-review-transparencyframework.pdf.

OECD (2015), Countering Harmful Tax Practices More Effectively, Taking into Account Transparency and Substance, Action 5 - 2015 Final Report, OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project, OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264241190-en.

Notes

← 1.  Terms of Reference and Methodology for the review as approved by the Inclusive Framework on 20 January 2017 (OECD, 2017).

← 2.  Where a ruling related only to tax years which were not covered by the relevant exchange of information agreement, no exchange of information would be required to occur in respect of that ruling. No negative inference is drawn in the peer review where an exchange was not permitted to occur because of the absence of, or the tax years covered by, an exchange of information agreement.