Australia: Consultation on updated tax transparency code, alignment with public CbC reporting rules
Comments are due July 11, 2025.
The Board of Taxation (BoT)—the body that developed and administers Australia's Voluntary Tax Transparency Code (VTTC)—on June 5, 2025, released a consultation paper proposing that the VTTC be simplified and updated given developments in the Australian and global tax transparency landscape.
Background
The VTTC is a set of principles and minimum standards to guide medium and large businesses on public disclosure of tax information. Corporations, super funds, trusts and partnerships are all encouraged to adopt the VTTC. Businesses publish their reports online and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) hosts a centralized database of links to the published reports. The BoT released a draft revised voluntary tax transparency report (TTR) to improve the framework in 2019, but the changes were not formally implemented.
Consultation
The consultation suggests a model that:
- Augments features of the new Australian public country-by-country (CbC) reporting rules (e.g., contribution beyond income taxes)
- Provides a framework for groups not large enough to be within the new public CbC rules
Comments are due by July 11, 2025, the final VTTC is proposed to be released in the second half of 2025.
KPMG observation
The key changes proposed by the BoT appear reasonable given the evolved transparency landscape, and the reduced reporting requirement for public CbC reporting entities is welcome and should avoid duplication across regimes.
For more information, contact a KPMG tax professional in Australia:
Philip Beswick | pbeswick@kpmg.com.au
Sean Madden | smadden3@kpmg.com.au
Val Misiura | vmisiura1@kpmg.com.au
Amanda Maguire | amaguire@kpmg.com.au