On April 29, 2022, the Maltese Commissioner for Revenue published DAC6 guidance in the form of FAQs.

The guidance explains the definition of intermediary, reporting deadlines and obligations, and other general questions.

There are a total of 27 questions.
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See Guidance

On April 25, 2022, the OECD held a public consultation meeting on the Implementation Framework of the global minimum tax.

The meeting discussed the input provided and consider the mechanisms to put in place in order to ensure that tax administrations and MNEs can implement and apply the Global Anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) Rules in a consistent and co-ordinated manner.

Following the release of the GloBE Rules as part of a landmark agreement on a two-pillar solution and the related Commentary, the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS is developing an Implementation Framework to support tax authorities in the implementation and administration of the GloBE Rules.

See Announcement

​Cameroon has deposited its instrument of ratification for the Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS Convention).

The Convention will enter into force on August 1, 2022, for Cameroon.

The Convention now covers over 1820 bilateral tax treaties, thus underlining their strong commitment to prevent the abuse of tax treaties and BEPS by multinational enterprises.

The OECD has released, as part of its work on BEPS Action 14, the Stage 2 peer review monitoring reports for Andorra, Bahamas, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Faroe Islands, Macau (China), Morocco and Tunisia.

These reports evaluate the progress made by these nine jurisdictions in implementing the recommendations resulting from their Stage 1 peer review.

They take into account any developments in the period of 1 September 2019 – 30 April 2021 and build on the Mutual Agreement Procedure (MAP) statistics for 2016-2020.

See Announcement

The Swiss tax authority has published withholding tax rates for treaty countries.

The rates have been published for Albania, Belarus, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Sweden.

The rates are available on the tax authority’s website.
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See Release

On April 12, 2022, the OECD and Brazil's Receita Federal (RFB) held a joint high-level to present the key features of Brazil’s proposed new transfer pricing system.

The outcome of the joint project between OECD and RFB will be a new transfer pricing framework for Brazil, aligned to the OECD standard.

In welcoming this important step forward, Paulo Guedes, Brazil’s Finance Minister noted: “As we successfully converge with the OECD standard, we are not only celebrating a key step forward but also addressing two main challenges: the harm of excessive taxation and double taxation that prevent investments; and the damage of tax avoidance through the transfer of profits to locations providing for a more favorable taxation. This is fundamental because it allows us to gain in efficiency, with effective allocation of investments across this global community that is embracing itself through the convergence of these practices.”
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See Announcement

The OECD is seeking public comments on the Extractives Exclusion under Amount A of Pillar One.

The Extractives Exclusion will exclude from the scope of Amount A the profits from Extractive Activities. The exclusion applies where a Group derives revenue from the exploitation of Extractive Products and the Group has carried out the relevant Exploration, Development or Extraction.

This approach reflects the policy goal of excluding the economic rents generated from location-specific extractive resources that should only be taxed in the source jurisdiction, while not undermining the comprehensive scope by limiting the exclusion in respect of profits generated from activities taking place beyond the source jurisdiction, or later in the production and manufacturing chain.
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See Announcement

India's Central Board of Direct Taxes has entered into 62 Advance Pricing Agreements (APAs) in FY 2021-22 with Indian taxpayers.

This includes 13 Bilateral APAs (consequent to Mutual Agreement between India and its treaty partners) and 49 Unilateral APAs.

With this, the total number of APAs since inception of the APA program has gone up to 421.

See Announcement

Oman has published detailed guidance on the implementation of the country’s country-by-country reporting requirement.

The guidance is aimed at enabling easy compliance with the CbC reporting rules and completing the template for reporting Multinational Enterprise’s (MNE) group allocation of income, taxes and business activities on a tax jurisdiction-by-tax jurisdiction basis.
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The guidance includes a detailed description on the preparation and submission of CbC reports.

Thailand has deposited its instrument of ratification for the Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (Convention or MLI), which now covers over 1800 bilateral tax treaties.

The Convention will enter into force on 1 July 2022 for Thailand.
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On 1 March 2022, over 880 treaties concluded among the 71 jurisdictions which have ratified, accepted or approved the Convention had already been modified by the Convention. An additional 940 treaties will be modified once the Convention will have been ratified by all Signatories.

See Announcement

The Barbados Competent Authority has developed guidelines on the appropriate use of the information contained in the country-by-country (CbC) reports.

The guidance is aimed at ensuring the effective implementation of the CbC reporting regime as per the Income Tax (Country-by-Country Reporting) Act, 2021-27.

The guidance discusses, among other things, what constitutes and does not constitute “appropriate use”, the meaning of BEPS-relates risk, and the consequences of non-compliance. It also discusses whether the Authority may use the CbC information in planning a tax audit or not.
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See Guidance

The tax treaty between Japan and Morocco will enter into force on 23 April 2022.

The treaty with generally come into effect from 1 January 2023.
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The provisions concerning the exchange of information and the assistance in the collection of taxes will have effect from April 23, 2022, without regard to the date on which the taxes are levied or the taxable year to which the taxes relate.

See Release

On March 22, 2022, the US’ Internal Revenue Service issued a report on the country’s advance pricing agreement (APA) regime.

In 2021, the percentage of renewals executed increased (63 percent of all APAs executed in 2021 versus 59 percent in 2020). The number of pending requests increased slightly relative to December 31, 2020. As of December 31, 2021, almost half of the pending bilateral APA requests involved either Japan or India.

Most of the transactions covered in APAs executed in 2021 involve the sale of tangible goods or the provision of services. Fifteen percent of the transactions involve the use of intangible property, which can be among the most challenging transactions in APMA’s inventory. In the majority of APAs, the covered transactions involve numerous business functions and risks.
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In 2021, the most commonly used transfer pricing method (TPM) for both the sale of tangible property and the use of intangible property continued to be the comparable profits method/transactional net margin method.

See Release

The OECD has released the latest peer review report assessing the actions taken by jurisdictions to prevent tax treaty shopping and other forms of treaty abuse under Action 6 of the OECD/G20 BEPS Project.

This peer review process, which includes data on tax treaties concluded by each of the 139 jurisdictions that were members of the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS on 31 May 2021, was the first to be carried out under the revised methodology forming the basis of the assessment of the Action 6 minimum standard.
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The fourth peer review report reveals that members of the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS are respecting their commitment to implement the minimum standard on treaty shopping. It further demonstrates that the BEPS Multilateral Instrument (MLI) has been the tool used by the vast majority of jurisdictions that have begun implementing the BEPS Action 6 minimum standard, and that the MLI has continued to significantly expand the implementation of the minimum standard for the jurisdictions that have ratified it.

See Report

The Swiss Federal Council is consulting on draft legislation to implement a global minimum tax set by the OECD.

According to the Federal Council, the legislation would be implemented in stages, by establishing a new constitutional norm and transitional provisions. The Federal Council intends to guarantee minimum taxation according to Pillar 2 by introducing a "supplementary tax". The top-up tax will, with regard to large corporate groups, bridge the gap between the effective tax rate and the minimum tax rate of 15%, insofar as the effective tax rate is lower at 15%.
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The consultation closes on 20 April 2022.

See Release