The EU has agreed it will force large multinational companies to publish a breakdown of the tax they pay in each of the bloc’s member states and in tax havens such as Seychelles, piling pressure on the UK government to follow suit.
After years of stalled talks, a deal was struck on Tuesday evening between EU governments and MEPs on public country by country reporting, a policy designed to expose how some of the world’s biggest companies – such as Apple,
Facebook and Google – avoid paying an estimated $500bn (£358bn) a year in taxes through shifting their profits.
Under the new rules, companies with global revenues of at least €750m (£645m) over two consecutive years must publicly disclose how much tax they pay in each of the EU member states and in 19 jurisdictions put on black and grey lists that are regarded to varying degrees as being “non-cooperative”.
The data provided will need to be broken down into the nature of the company’s activities, the number of full-time employees, the amount of profit or loss before income tax, the amount of accumulated and paid income tax and accumulated earnings.
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