The Bahamas has formally communicated to the OECD its intention to sign the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters.
The OECD’s disclosure facility for Common Reporting Standard (CRS) avoidance schemes, launched in May, has so far caused the Hong Kong authorities to issue new guidance about registration of ‘occupational retirement schemes’, to clarify that not all such schemes are out of scope of CRS reporting.
The EU Parliament’s committee on economic and monetary affairs has submitted a question for written answer to the chair of the ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism Board, concerning ‘supervising the use of tax havens by European banks’.
The European Commission has published its latest annual report on competition policy, covering the year 2016, in which it defends the use of state aid rules to counter tax rulings allowing multinational groups to reduce corporate taxes payable in certain member states.
The OECD has released its peer review document forming the basis for assessment of the BEPS action 6 minimum standard for preventing ‘treaty shopping’.
The EU has ‘ample room’ to take a ‘pragmatic approach’ to trade with the City of London after Brexit, states the OECD in its 2017 Business and Finance Outlook.
European finance ministers have agreed a draft directive to improve the EU’s double taxation dispute resolution mechanisms. The directive will make these mechanisms mandatory and binding, with clear time limits for reaching agreement.
The European Parliament has voted to extend by three months its inquiry committee, set up in June 2016, into matters surrounding the ‘Panama papers’. The inquiry was initially intended to report after 12 months.
The European Council has given the formal go-ahead for the Commission to open the Article 50 negotiations with the UK. The Commission’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has outlined his provisional timetable for the negotiations.
The OECD invites comments by 30 June 2017 on a discussion draft of guidance on the approach to pricing transfers of hard-to-value intangibles, as required by the final report on Action 8–10 of the BEPS action plan.