Publishing corporate tax information Country-by-country reporting for multinational enterprise groups

Briefing 16-08-2016

The Commission's Better Regulation Guidelines recall that an impact assessment 'should be comprehensive, proportionate, evidence-based, open to stakeholder's view, unbiased, prepared collectively with relevant Commission services, embedded in the policy cycle, transparent and of a high quality' (Guidelines, p. 20). After an initial appraisal, it can be concluded that this IA seems to fit to a large extent this description and could be considered in many respects as an example of good practice, compared to other Commission IAs in the financial field. The Better Regulation Guidelines have been to a large extent respected. The IA seems to have considered the recommendations made in relevant Parliament resolutions, such as the one of 16 December 2015 on 'bringing transparency, coordination and convergence to corporate tax policies in the Union', although, in some cases, the Commission has drawn different conclusions. One of the weaknesses is that the IA does not appear to present the likely impacts of some changes introduced in the proposal and acknowledged in the Explanatory Memorandum, such as the EU list of tax havens. Overall, this IA appears to contribute effectively to informing the decision-making process.