A Common Tax Base For Multinational Enterprises In The European Union

Carsten Wendt analyses the necessity, the concept as well as potential advantages and effects of a common tax base for multinational enterprises in the European Union. He addresses important issues concerning a common tax base, such as the definition of the consolidated group, the technique and scope of consolidation and the formula used to allocate the consolidated tax base among the involved member states.

Having spent almost fifty years of my life defending the separate accou- ing, arm's length pricing method, I have to admit that I was somewhat surprised to be asked to contribute to a book suggesting that the European Union might do well to consider adopting a formulary approach to deal with the taxation of inter and intra company transactions. I was even more surprised to see the invitation coming from Ms. Joann Weiner an ardent co-defender of arm's length pricing and my strong right arm in that regard while we both served in the U.S. Treasury Department in the mid '90s. The book gives Ms Weiner the opportunity to comment frankly from an insider's perspective of the many admitted problems of the arm's length system which could be avoided by a formulary approach. Ms. Weiner brings to this project a thorough expert knowledge of the b- efits and shortfalls of each of the systems she discusses - separate accounting v. formulary apportionment. Who better to decide to give qualified support to formulary than someone who organized a U.S. Treasury conference to defend arm's length pricing against a Congressional challenge in favor of formulary apportionment.

The Allocation of Multinational Business Income: Reassessing the Formulary Apportionment Option Edited by Richard Krever & François Vaillancourt Although arm’s length methodology continues to prevail in international taxation policy, it has long been replaced by the formulary apportionment method at the subnational level in a few federal countries. Its use is planned for international profit allocation as an element of the European Union’s CCCTB proposals. In this timely book – a global guide to formulary apportionment, both as it exists in practice and how it might function internationally – a knowledgeable group of contributors from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, address this actively debated topic, both in respect of its technical aspects and its promise as a global response to the avoidance, distortions, and unfairness of current allocation systems. Drawing on a wealth of literature considering formulary apportionment in the international sphere and considering decades of experience with the system in the states and provinces of the United States and Canada, the contributors explicate and examine such pertinent issues as the following: the debate about what factors should be used to allocate profits under a formulary apportionment system and experience in jurisdictions using formulary apportionment; application of formulary apportionment in specific sectors such as digital enterprises and the banking industry; the political economy of establishing and maintaining a successful formulary apportionment regime; formulary apportionment proposals for Europe; the role of traditional tax criteria such as economic efficiency, fairness, ease of administration, and robustness to avoidance and incentive compatibility; determining which parts of a multinational group are included in a formulary apportionment unit; and whether innovative profit-split methodologies such as those developed by China are shifting traditional arm’s length methods to a quasi-formulary apportionment system. Providing a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of the formulary apportionment option, this state of the art summary of history, current practice, proposals and prospects in the ongoing debate over arm’s length versus formulary apportionment methodologies will be welcomed by practitioners, policy-makers, and academics concerned with international taxation, all of whom will gain an understanding of the case put forward by proponents for adoption of formulary apportionment in Europe and globally and the counter-arguments they face. Readers will acquire a better understanding of the implications of formulary apportionment and its central role in the current debate about the future of international taxation rules. “...providing (sic) all the intellectual ammunition needed to carefully re-examine one of the ideas traditionally considered as apocryphal by the OECD and to a significant portion of the tax professional community...readers of this book will come away not only with a renewed understanding of the multiple facets of formulary apportionment, but also of some of the fundamental pressure points in the international tax system. Accordingly, it is a welcome and timely addition to the literature. ” Dr. Stjepan Gadžo, Assistant Professor at University of Rijeka, Faculty of Law / British Tax Review 2021, Issue 2, p243-246

This paper aims to contribute to the European policy debate on corporate income tax reform in three ways. First, it takes a step back to review the performance of the CIT in Europe over the past several decades and the important role played by MNEs in European economies. Second, it analyses corporate tax spillovers in Europe with a focus on the channels and magnitudes of both profit shifting and CIT competition. Third, the paper examines the progress made in European CIT coordination and discusses reforms to strengthen the harmonization of corporate tax policies, in order to effectively reduce both tax competition and profit shifting.

The European Commission is currently working on a legislative draft to harmonise the corporate income tax provisions for multinational groups of companies throughout the European Union. For that purpose the European Commission has installed a working group with the mission to draft a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) applicable for multinational companies. As the EU member states are not willing to surrender their taxing power to the supranational level of the EU each group entity2s tax base would be determined by apportionment of the group2s overall taxable income according to a predefined micro-economic factor based formula whereas the group income will be calculated by consolidating earnings beforehand separately determined by each group entity (preconsolidation income). The situs state of the particular group entity would then apply its statutory corporate tax rate on the apportioned tax base. This paper evaluates the effects of this prospective apportionment procedure on any given corporate group entity and finds that the share of the group2s income allocated to a particular entity using the apportionment formula does regularly not equal the pre-consolidation income of the respective group entity. The reasons for this regular observable deviation can be found on the one hand in the concept of the apportionment formula and on the other hand in the specifics of the definitions of the apportionment factors. (author's abstract).

In October 2016, the European Commission relaunched its plan to harmonize national income tax systems via the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB), perhaps the most ambitious reform of EU tax law ever attempted. This timely book offers an early analysis of this important proposal and its implications, covering issues such as the project’s scope and main elements, international considerations, the relationship with OECD’s base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) initiative, consolidation, and anti-abuse rules. With carefully selected papers first presented at a January 2017 conference hosted by the Amsterdam Centre for Tax Law, this volume focuses on such topics and issues as the following: – ways in which the proposed CCCTB is designed to preserve the competence of Member States to set their own tax rates; – reduction of the administrative burden for multinational companies; – incentives for research and development; – automatic cross-border relief within the EU; – detailed analysis of the proposal’s formula apportionment regime; – proposed new controlled foreign company (CFC) rules; and – interest limitation rule. Because of the commitment of many Member States to keep their corporate income tax systems competitive on a stand-alone basis, the proposed CCCTB is enormously controversial. This book provides authoritative insights into problems likely to arise and discusses the prospects of how the proposal is likely to be implemented. Thus, this book proves to be of immeasurable value to taxation policymakers, practitioners, and academics.

The European Commission’s proposed Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) is the most ambitious project in the history of direct taxation within the EU. While retaining the right of Member States to set their own corporate tax rate, the proposed system allows for a ‘one-stop shop’ for filing tax returns and consolidating prof its and losses across the EU. In this book – the first to offer guidance to practitioners whose work will be affected by these new developments – 19 prominent representatives of the business community, tax consultancy, academic taxation scholarship and tax administration discuss the proposed system’s rationale, structure and uncertainties, ranging from very technical aspects, to the wording of the proposal, to political considerations. These topics include the following: eligibility; formation of a group; the concept of ‘permanent establishment’; foreign tax credits; ‘dual resident’ companies; consequences of entering and leaving; depreciation of fixed assets; repackaged asset transfers; appeals procedure; disagreements among Member States; subsidiarity and the ‘yellow card procedure’; international aspects and tax treaties; sharing mechanism and transfer pricing; and anti-abuse rules. The discussion raises numerous issues likely to lead to future amendments, and for this reason, along with its practical value in developing an understanding of the proposed system’s specific effects, the book will be welcomed by tax consultants and lawyers worldwide, corporate tax advisers, European tax authorities and tax researchers and academics.

The book considers the impact of the CCCTB from the perspective of non-EU-based enterprises that are carrying on business in the EU through the operation of branches or subsidiaries in member states. It incorporates the perspectives of leading scholars

Tax avoidance by multinational enterprises (MNEs) is a global problem. Most crossborder trade occurs within MNEs, susceptible to abuse of gaps and loopholes in domestic and international tax law that allow “profit shifting” between fiscal jurisdictions in order to reduce corporate tax liability. A lack of transparency makes this kind of tax avoidance difficult to quantify - let alone to monitor and control. This paper provides a case study of profit shifting using publicly available, unique, country-by-country reporting data for Vodafone Group Plc, the first large MNE to voluntarily publish such data. We show the tax impact of a move to formulary apportionment on a global basis, and under the European Union's Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base proposal. We also consider the rationale for the current proposals for apportionment factors and propose an alternative.

Group taxation – special schemes according to which a group of companies meeting certain requirements may be assimilated for tax purposes to a single company – exists in several European Member States and is now under consideration in an EU proposal concerning a common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB). Its rationale as a potential EU tax regime has arisen from a series of high-profile ECJ cases concerning cross-border tax relief claims – decisions which have been criticized for lack of clarity and for breach of freedom of establishment (Article 49 TFEU). Group taxation has now become one of the most intensively debated issues in EU tax law. The papers collected in this timely book derive from an ACTL Seminar held at Amsterdam in April 2010. The thirteen authors are either well-known practitioners from major law firms and accounting firms, or noted European tax scholars, or both. Among the central issues covered in the book are the following: the underlying tax obstacles which exist for companies operating in more than one Member State; potential for tax avoidance; prevention of double use of losses (the ‘no possibilities’ test); disadvantages that arise as a consequence of the parallel exercise of fiscal sovereignty; the concept of ‘balanced allocation of taxing powers’; meaning of ‘final losses’; the ‘Bosal fix’; cash-flow disadvantages of having to carry losses forward; deduction of currency losses; deduction-and-recapture rules; and VAT grouping.