On December 28, 2020, the Italian Revenue Agency published a draft Circular on DAC6, providing key information on the application of the reporting requirement.

The Circular provides information on hallmarks, reporting triggers, entities required to report, and penalties for non-compliance.

Public input on the draft Circular is sought until January 15.

See Draft Circular

Irish Revenue has updated The Tax and Duty Manual Part 33-03-03, which provides guidance on the country’s DAC6 legislation.

The Tax and Duty Manual has been updated in a number of respects and, where those updates are material, they are set out in Appendix V.   

Under the EU mandatory disclosure regime, intermediaries and, in certain circumstances, taxpayers, are required to disclose information regarding “reportable cross-border arrangements” to the tax authorities of EU Member States, including Revenue.
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See Update

On December 17, 2020, the Greek Independent Authority for Public Revenue published a revised list of preferential tax regimes for the 2019 tax year.

For the 2019 tax year, the list includes: Albania, Andorra, Anguilla, Bahamas, Bahrain, Belize, Bermuda, Bonaire, Bosnia-Herzegovina, British Virgin Islands, Bulgaria, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Hungary, Ireland, Isle of Man, Jersey, Jordan, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Macau, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Montserrat, Nauru, North Macedonia, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, St. Eustatius, Turks and Caicos Islands, the UAE, Uzbekistan, and Vanuatu.

Oman and Seychelles have both been removed from the list as it stood for 2018.
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See Circular

On December 18, 2020, the OECD published detailed guidance on the transfer pricing implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The guidance discusses the practical application of the arm’s length principle in the following four priority issues identified in consultation with Business at the OECD: comparability analysis; losses and the allocation of COVID-19 specific costs; government assistance programmes; and advance pricing agreements (APAs).

The guidance represents the consensus view of the 137 members of the Inclusive Framework on BEPS regarding the application of the arm’s length principle and the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines to issues that may arise or be exacerbated in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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See Guidance

Transparency on tax rulings is now a fully-entrenched part of the international tax framework, with 20,000 tax rulings having been identified and 36,000 exchanges between jurisdictions having taken place, a new report reveals.

According to the 2019 Peer Review Reports on the Exchange of Information on Tax Rulings released on December 15, 81 jurisdictions are now fully in line with the BEPS Action 5 minimum standard, with the remaining 43 jurisdictions receiving one or more recommendations to improve their legal or operational framework to identify and exchange the tax rulings.

As the delivery of the BEPS project has reached its five-year mark this year, the Inclusive Framework is now working to ensure that the progress made on ensuring transparency in relation to the issuance of tax rulings is maintained towards the future, both through a review of the overall effectiveness of the Standard and the development of a renewed peer review process for the years 2021-2025.
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See Report

The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore has published a short note on The International Compliance Assurance Programme (ICAP).

IRAS is participating in ICAP from 2021. An MNE may indicate an interest in participating in ICAP to the tax administration in the jurisdiction of its ultimate parent entity (the UPE tax administration) or may be approached by its UPE tax administration to discuss its possible participation in the programme.

The MNE’s suitability for ICAP will be considered on a case-by-case basis. The MNE may propose for participating tax administrations it wishes to involve in its ICAP risk assessment, which will be subject to the participating tax administrations’ agreement.

The International Compliance Assurance Programme (ICAP) is a voluntary risk assessment and assurance programme to facilitate co-operative multilateral engagements between multinational enterprises (MNEs) and tax administrations.
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See Note

The Netherlands disagrees with the Russian proposal to amend the tax treaty, according to a news published by TASS, Russian News Agency.

"According to the Netherlands, the Russian proposal to amend the tax treaty takes too limited account of real economic activities. This proposal therefore has negative consequences for both the Dutch and Russian businesses," TASS wrote quoting Remco Raus, the press officer of the Dutch Finance Ministry.

According to Raus, the Dutch side has made "constructive proposals to preserve the tax treaty for real economic activities whilst preventing access to activities that do not contribute to the economy in line with the Dutch policy to combat tax avoidance." He added that discussions on the revision of the tax treaty are still ongoing, TASS wrote.

See News

On December 4, 2020, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) provided an update on the compliance activities undertaken by the Tax Avoidance Taskforce for the 2019–20 financial year.

Compliance activities generated AUD 2.7 billion in tax liabilities and AUD 1.6 billion in audit yield from large public groups and multinational corporations, wealthy individuals, and private groups.
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The multinational anti-avoidance law has been successfully implemented with the restructures resulting in more than AUD 8 billion additional taxable sales being booked in Australia, the ATO said.

See Release

On November 27, 2020, Bahrain signed the Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, becoming the 95th jurisdiction to join the Convention, which now covers over 1,700 bilateral tax treaties.

The Convention, which became effective with respect to some treaties, will have modified on January 1, 2021, about 650 treaties among the 57 jurisdictions that have already deposited their instrument of acceptance, approval or ratification.
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Shaikh Naser Bin Khaled Al Khalifa, Chargé d’Affaires of the Embassy of Bahrain in France, signed the Convention at a signing ceremony held in Paris.