Increased tax transparency is coming for many, but an MNE simply increasing the amount of data available does not automatically translate into stakeholders having deeper insights about an MNE's activities nor does it help build trust between business, civil society, decision makers and opinion formers.
The future of meaningful tax reporting lies in understanding the information made available; this will be a joint effort between businesses who are reporting and stakeholders using that information.
Businesses will have to understand and meet reporting obligations, with quality data, explanations which are accessible and be willing to engage in dialogue with stakeholders about their business and their approach to tax. Stakeholders will have to accept that tax is a highly complex area, possibly challenging their existing understanding of concepts such as effective tax rates, to understand the tax data available and the explanations given.
This paper was developed with the help of many stakeholders, but as the transparency expectations of businesses and the number of engaged stakeholders continues to grow, we believe there are always perspectives which we haven’t yet heard. If you would like to discuss any of the issues or ideas raised by the paper, please do not hesitate to contact us.
