Seminar om de multinationales skatteunddragelser i u-landene

Time: Wednesday, 8 September at 13 – 15 hours

Venue: Danish Institute for International Studies, Main Auditorium, ground floor, Strandgade 71, Christianshavn, 1401 Kbn K

Time: Wednesday, 8 September at 13 – 15 hours

Venue: Danish Institute for International Studies, Main Auditorium, ground floor, Strandgade 71, Christianshavn, 1401 Kbn K

“Tax avoidance is a global problem. It involves the abusive exploitation of gaps and loopholes in domestic and international tax law that allow multinational companies to shift profits from country to country, often to or via tax havens, with the intention of reducing the tax they pay on some or all of their profits. Tax avoidance on such a large scale is facilitated by a lack of transparency in the way multinational companies report and publish their accounts. Making multinational companies more transparent would help tackle tax avoidance at very low cost” (Raymond Baker, director of Global Financial Integrity, 2009).

At present, most multinational companies publish their accounts as unified entities with no geographical data on where they work or what their financial performance is in the different countries they work in. This makes it impossible to know whether companies are paying a fair share of taxes in the countries they operate in or not.

It has been estimated that the loss of corporate taxes, as a result of corporate tax evasion practices, amounts to 160 billion US dollar a year in developing countries, or almost 1,5 times the total amount of development assistance.

Country-by-country reporting is a new system of accounting for multinational corporations that strives to enhance transparency and to ensure that more tax is paid in developing countries.

By requiring multinational corporations to account for the sales, profits and taxes paid in all the jurisdictions in which they operate, it will be possible for a wide range of stakeholders to monitor tax payments and illicit practices (such as transfer mispricing between internal companies in a corporation) and use this information as a basis for changing local tax arrangements.

However, sceptics argue that changing accounting standards for multinational corporations would be too costly for corporations and too complicated for auditors– in short, that it is unrealistic.

Our speaker at this seminar, Richard Murphy, is the director of Tax Research LLP, one of the foremost experts in the world on country-by-country reporting and the author of the comprehensive report: Country-by-Country Reporting – Holding multinational corporations to account wherever they are (2009).

Richard Murphy will present the technicalities of country-by-country reporting, discuss its pros and cons and the possibilities for its implementation.

Speakers

Richard Murphy, Director, Tax Research LLP, Norfolk, UK
Jakob Vestergaard, Senior Researcher, DIIS

PROGRAMME

13.00-13.10
Introduction by Jakob Vestergaard, Senior Researcher, DIIS

13.10-14.00
Country-by-Country Reporting – Holding Multinational Corporations to Account Wherever They Are by Richard Murphy, Director, Tax Research LLP, Norfolk

14.00-14.20
Coffee Break

14.20-15.00
Open Discussion

Chair: Jakob Vestergaard, Senior Researcher, DIIS

The seminar will be held in English.

Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. Please use our online registration form on http://www.diis.dk/sw96629.asp

And do so no later than Tuesday, 7 September 2010 at 12.00 noon.

Please await confirmation by e-mail from DIIS for participation.

Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), The Conference Section, Strandgade 56, 1401 Kbn K, tlf. 32 69 87 51, fax 32 69 87 00, e-mail: [email protected] ogweb: www.diis.dk