On October 18, 2021, the OECD published the fourth annual peer review for the BEPS Action 13 minimum standard. It covers 132 jurisdictions which provided legislation and/or information relating to their implementation of CbC Reporting. For each jurisdiction, the review covers the domestic legal and administrative framework, the exchange of information framework and measures in place to ensure the confidentiality and appropriate use of CbC reports.

Key findings

The key findings of the fourth annual peer review are as follows:

·     Domestic legal and administrative framework: Over 100 jurisdictions have a domestic legal framework for CbC reporting in place. In addition, a number of jurisdictions have final legislation approved that is awaiting official publication. In this peer review report, 33 jurisdictions have received a general recommendation to put in place or finalise their domestic legal or administrative framework and 43 jurisdictions received one or more recommendations for improvements to specific areas of their framework.

·     Exchange of information framework: In total, 83 jurisdictions have multilateral or bilateral competent authority agreements in place.

·     Confidentiality: Of the jurisdictions included in this review, 89 have undergone an assessment by the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (the Global Forum) concerning confidentiality and data safeguards in the context of implementing the AEOI standard and did not receive any action plan. A further 10 jurisdictions are currently working on an action plan issued by the Global Forum as a consequence of its review.

·     Appropriate use: 84 jurisdictions have provided detailed information, enabling the Inclusive Framework to obtain sufficient assurance that measures are in place to ensure the appropriate use of CbC reports.

During the course of this peer review, a number of jurisdictions reported delays in the implementation of CbC reporting, or in the filing and exchange of CbC reports, resulting from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. As these concern issues beyond the control of tax administrations, and there is no reason to believe they will persist once the pandemic comes to an end, these delays are not highlighted in each jurisdiction’s peer review and no recommendation is made. If delays continue into periods covered by future peer reviews, they will be considered in the context of the global situation at that time.

A number of Inclusive Framework members are not included in this peer review report, either because they joined the Inclusive Framework after 1 December 2020 (at which point it was too late to incorporate them into the current peer review process) or they opted out of the peer review in accordance with the peer review terms of reference. Jurisdictions opting out of the peer review are required to confirm that they do not have any resident entities that are the UPE of an MNE Group above the consolidated group revenue threshold and that they will not require local filing of CbC reports. Members of the Inclusive Framework that are not included in this peer review report are:

·     Albania

·     Belarus

·     Burkina Faso

·     Cook Islands

·     Montenegro

·     Saint Kitts and Nevis

·     Samoa

·     Togo

OECD publishes its fourth annual peer review for the BEPS Action 13 minimum standard is available in the English and French language and can be downloaded here.

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