Nicholas Brown – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Brown on 2015-11-02.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what progress his Department has made in tackling international tax avoidance.

Mr David Gauke

The Government is committed to countering tax avoidance to ensure all tax payers pay their fair share. The UK has been at the forefront of international efforts to tackle corporate tax avoidance through the OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project, which had the objective of ensuring profits are taxed where economic activities are performed.

The first phase of the BEPS project was delivered in 2014, and the UK was the first adopter of the 2014 recommendations, by legislating for the internationally agreed country-by-country reporting template; and consulting on implementing the OECD agreed rules to deal with hybrid mismatch arrangements.

In line with the objectives of the BEPS project, the Government also introduced the Diverted Profits Tax to target contrived arrangements used by large multinational companies to divert profits away from the UK.

The final BEPS project reports were published on 5 October 2015. The UK will give full consideration to the outputs of the BEPS project and will engage with the OECD’s work on developing a framework for monitoring implementation.