Strategizing Multinational Tax Risks

As MNE’s are preparing for the country-by-country (CbC) reporting in 2017 for the 2016 tax year, it is readily apparent that the OECD’s intent of Dec. 31, 2017 is readily being eroded by several countries.

For example, US has proposed reporting (obligatory for the 2017 tax year) as of Sept. 15 of the following year, aligned with timing for filing of the federal income tax return.

China has imposed a May 31 date, if a Cbc report is required, aligned with its tax return due date.

Other countries are choosing different dates for CbC reporting, as well as Master File and Local File reporting, that impose additional compliance and timing demands on all MNE’s, based on the earliest date chosen by a country in which it operates.

What does this mean?  Earlier preparation, compressed timelines, mismatching of Master File, Local File and CbC reports, notwithstanding its intended comprehensive alignment.

Additionally, all US MNE’s must now review rules to determine if a surrogate filing entity is required for the 2016 CbC report as the US report is not obligatory.  The stated filing entity must be communicated by this year-end, 2016, with varying penalty amounts applicable for non-reporting.

As a simple idea is turning into a tsunami of complexity, tax administrations will have to understand how such information is beneficial for transfer pricing risk analysis, as most people will concede that a CbC report has no direct relationship to transfer pricing.