Размышления женщины о геополитике. Татьяна Александровна Югай
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СКАЧАТЬ cases, the regime may have been designed specifically to act as a conduit for routing capital flows across borders. These regimes may be found in the general tax code or in administrative practices, or they may have been established by special tax and non-tax legislation outside the framework of the general tax system». Further on, the OECD defines «four key factors assist in identifying harmful preferential tax regimes:

      (a) the regime imposes a low or zero effective tax rate on the relevant income;

      (b) the regime is «ring-fenced»;

      (c) the operation of the regime is nontransparent;

      (d) the jurisdiction operating the regime does not effectively exchange information with other countries»53.

      The Report contains guidelines for dealing with harmful preferential tax regimes in member countries, similar to those of EU’s Code of Conduct, including:

      1. To refrain from adopting new measures, or extending the scope of, or strengthening existing measures, in the form of legislative provisions or administrative practices related to taxation, that constitute harmful tax practices;

      2. To review their existing measures for the purpose of identifying those measures, in the form of legislative provisions or administrative practices related to taxation, that constitute harmful tax practices;

      3. To remove, before the end of 5 years starting from the date on which the Guidelines are approved by the OECD Council, the harmful features of their preferential tax regimes etc.54.

      The turning point occurred in the middle of 2000, when two international organizations – the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) and the OECD – almost simultaneously published reports about offshore jurisdictions. The FATF published its Review to Identify Non-Cooperative Countries (June 22, 2000) based upon 25 Criteria promulgated by the FATF’s Report on Non-cooperative Countries and Territories (February, 2000). The OECD published the Report on Progress in Identifying and Eliminating Harmful Tax Practices (June 26, 2000) prepared by the Forum on Harmful Tax Practices. From June 2000, the FATF and the OECD had started issuing «black» and «gray» lists of «non-cooperative» jurisdictions.

      The OECD acknowledged as a huge problem the practice of double non-taxation, as well as cases of no or low taxation resulting in multinational enterprises paying global corporate tax rates of just 1 or 2% due to sophisticated tax schemes including offshores. The OECD presumes that, «when reporting their global earnings, too many multinational companies can artificially (and legally) move their profits around in search of the lowest tax rates, often undermining the tax bases of the jurisdictions where the real economic activities take place and where value is created»55. The OECD estimated that in 2013 global corporate income tax revenue losses could be between 4% to 10% of global revenues56, i.e. almost a quarter of a trillion dollars annually57. The main reasons behind cross-border tax evasion were aggressive tax planning by some multinational enterprises, interaction of domestic tax rules, lack of transparency and coordination between tax administrations, limited country enforcement resources and harmful tax practices. The affiliates of MNEs in low tax countries report almost twice the profit rate (relative to assets) of their global group, showing how BEPS can cause economic distortions58.

      Two pillars of international anti-offshore legislation

      Current international tax agenda relies on two building blocks: tackling tax avoidance via the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project; and promoting transparency and exchange of information among jurisdictions for tax purposes.

      Addressing base erosion and profit shifting

      The OECD coined the term «base erosion and profit shifting» (BEPS) and focused its efforts on creating legal framework to deal with this problem. The OECD report «Addressing Base Erosion and Profit Shifting» states, «Base erosion constitutes a serious risk to tax revenues, tax sovereignty and tax fairness for OECD member countries and non-members alike. While there are many ways in which domestic tax bases can be eroded, a significant source of base erosion is profit shifting»59. The report analyzes the main causes of BEPS and identifies «six key pressure areas: 1) hybrids and mismatches which generate arbitrage opportunities; 2) the residence-source tax balance, in the context in particular of the digital economy; 3) intragroup financing, with companies in high-tax countries being loaded with debt; 4) transfer pricing issues, such as the treatment of group synergies, location savings; 5) the effectiveness of anti-avoidance rules, which are often watered down because of heavy lobbying and competitive pressure and 6) the existence of preferential regimes»60.

      The BEPS package developed by the OECD upon the request of G20 leaders covers three unifying tasks:

      – to align rules on taxation with the location of economic activity and value creation;

      – to improve coherence between domestic tax systems and international rules;

      – to promote transparency.

      The BEPS package was introduced in Kyoto, Japan, in June 2016. The BEPS Project delivers solutions for governments to close the gaps in existing international rules that allow corporate profits to «disappear» or be artificially shifted to low or no tax environments, where companies have little or no economic activity61.

      In line with the OECD BEPS package, the European Commission adopted the Action Plan (2015) for fair and efficient corporate taxation in the EU, which also deals with issues related to harmful tax practices. On 28 January 2016, the European Commission presented the Anti-Tax Avoidance Package and the Council adopted the Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive on 12 July 2016. The Directive proposes six legally binding anti-abuse measures to counteract some of the most common types of aggressive tax planning, which all Member States should apply against common forms of aggressive tax planning.

      Key features of the Anti-Tax Avoidance Package include:

      – legally-binding measures to block the most common methods used by companies to avoid paying tax;

      – a recommendation to Member States on how to prevent tax treaty abuse;

      – a proposal for Member States to share tax-related information on multinationals operating in the EU;

      – actions to promote tax good governance internationally;

      – a new EU process for listing third countries that refuse to play fair62.

      Political agreement on the Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive (ATAD) was reached by the EU Member States at the meeting of Economic and Financial Affairs (ECOFIN) Council on 17 June 2016. The agreement requires all Member States to enact laws that largely implement G20/OECD base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) outcomes on interest limitation rules, hybrid mismatches and controlled foreign companies (CFCs) as well as additional measures on exit taxation and a general anti-abuse rule (GAAR). Member States were generally required to adopt these ATAD measures in their domestic law by 31 December 2018.

      Promoting СКАЧАТЬ

<p>53</p>

OECD (1998) Op. cit., p.25.

<p>54</p>

Ibid, p.72.

<p>55</p>

Saint-Amans, P. Global tax and transparency: We have the tools, now we must make them work. URL: http://www.oecd.org/tax/global-tax-transparency-we-have-the-tools.htm.

<p>56</p>

Ibid.

<p>57</p>

OECD (2015) Secretary-General Report to G20 Leaders. Antalya, Turkey November 2015, Paris: OECD Publishing, p.9.

<p>58</p>

Saint-Amans, P. Op. cit.

<p>59</p>

OECD (2013) Addressing Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, Paris: OECD Publishing, p.6.

<p>60</p>

Ibid, p.9.

<p>61</p>

OECD (2016) First meeting of the new inclusive framework to tackle Base Erosion and Profit Shifting marks a new era in international tax co-operation. URL: http://www.oecd.org/tax/first-meeting-of-the-new-inclusive-framework- to-tackle-base-erosion-and-profit-shifting-marks-a-new-era-in-international-tax-co-operation.htm.

<p>62</p>

European Commission (2016) Fair Taxation: Commission presents new measures against corporate tax Avoidance URL: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-159_en.htm.