Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 29 April 2020 to Question 39777, on Multinational Companies: Disclosure of Information, what assessment his Department has made of the (a) accuracy and (b) reliability of country by country reporting data that is (i) supplied to the UK by multinational companies and (ii) supplied by the UK to the OECD.

UK multinational groups have provided their Country-by-Country Reporting (CbCR) data to HMRC from 2016 onwards, prepared in accordance with the OECD Action 13 framework.

This data has been beneficial as a risk assessment tool in supporting HMRC’s compliance activities.

However, alongside errors that necessitate correction, there have been issues with the consistency of data being submitted by UK multinational groups within Country-by-Country reports.

In particular, in the absence of OECD guidance on this point, multinational groups have taken different approaches in relation to the inclusion of intragroup dividends receivable within CbCR profit.

While this does not compromise the value of Country-by-Country Reports for individual group compliance purposes, it does compromise how representative and comparable the aggregate CbCR data is for UK multinational groups.