Confidentiality of tax information subject to automatic exchange: imperatives of ensuring

Abstract

OECD governments are working together to address important issues of rapid response to the use of aggressive tax planning and transfer pricing by multinational entities (MNE). Activities in the area of transfer pricing lead to the erosion of the tax base – the state does not receive adequate tax revenues. World practice shows that transfer pricing needs to be regulated. The OECD provided recommendations, including on the establishment of mechanisms for the administration of transfer pricing, the definition of basic requirements for documentation on transfer pricing and the exchange of tax information. As a result of the involvement of more and more countries in the global exchange of tax information, in recent years the problems of ensuring the confidentiality of information to be exchanged have become important. The OECD provides governments with the opportunity to share experience, identify best practices and coordinate activities in the context of the mentioned issue. Ukraine is actively involved in these processes, which highlight the introduction of a number of tools to establish the functioning of international automatic exchange and ensure the confidentiality of tax information. The latter causes further implementation of relevant OECD model legislation. The analysis of international approaches and best practices for ensuring confidentiality and an appropriate level of protection of information exchanges between OECD member states on the issues of the BEPS Action Plan implementation and identification of imperatives for their application are performed. The research is based on a synthesis of general scientific methods, methods of comparison, institutional analysis and empirical approach. The OECD recommendations and the national legislation of certain countries, which contain provisions for ensuring confidentiality and protection of tax information to be exchanged are summarized and systematized. According to the results of the study, various tax administrations are guided by the recommendations of the OECD model legislation within the development of a mechanism to ensure the necessary level of confidentiality and effective protection of tax information to be exchanged. But there are some national pecularities and obstacles for implementation of OECD model legislation.