Submission on US Draft Regulations on Country by Country Reporting

The BMG has now made a submission to the US Treasury on its draft Regulations for Country by Country Reporting.

Overall, we applaud this implementation of Country-by-Country Reporting (CbCR) in accordance with the recommendations of the 5 October 2015 Final Report on Action 13 of the G20/OECD project on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS). The proposed regulation as drafted will be an important contribution to the ability of the IRS to enforce U.S. tax laws. Recent estimates by Kimberly Clausing suggest that profit shifting likely cost the U.S. government between $77 and $111 billion in corporate tax revenue in 2012, and that these revenue losses have increased substantially in recent years.

A strong and effective CbCR program will provide the IRS with an important tool to identify situations not only involving potential transfer pricing issues, but also potential application of judicial concepts and other laws, such as determining whether income is effectively connected with a trade or business being conducted in the U.S. Often, the real business of some low- or zero-taxed foreign group members is being conducted by group members located within the U.S. Where this is found, the IRS can potentially choose to impose tax through re-characterization under judicial concepts, through transfer pricing adjustments, or through application of the effectively connected income rules. Often, where the facts support it, applying the effectively connected income rules will provide a more statutory basis to assess tax, which will be assessed at higher effective tax rates due to the §884 branch profits tax and the potential loss of deductions and credits under §882(c)(2) where a foreign group member has previously filed no U.S. tax return.

We wish to add as well that effective CbCR will better allow the IRS to target their examinations on both domestic MNEs and foreign-based MNEs. Importantly, foreign-based MNEs include inverted MNEs and foreign MNEs that have acquired U.S.-run multinational businesses. Especially for these purposes, it is of extreme importance that the IRS fully and actively participates in the automatic exchange of CbCRs among treaty partners as contemplated by BEPS Action 13.

The U.S. is the most important single country whose actions will help define the BEPS process and its degree of future success. The resolute actions of the Treasury and the IRS, both in timely publishing effective regulations and in implementing sharing through information exchange mechanisms, will provide a meaningful leadership position that sets an example for the rest of the world.