As part of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) programme, Ireland has introduced domestic legislation to adopt the Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting requirements into Irish law. Revenue eBrief No. 107/17 extends the deadline for filing to 28 February 2018 (for 31 December 2016 year end Groups).
Overview
The CbC reporting requirements have been implemented for fiscal years beginning on or after 1 January 2016 and apply to Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) with annual consolidated group revenue equal to or exceeding €750m.
MNEs are required to provide all relevant governments with information on their global allocation of income, economic activity and taxes paid among countries according to a common template.
CbC reports should be filed in the jurisdiction of tax residence of the surrogate parent entity and are shared between jurisdictions through automatic exchange of information, pursuant to government-to-government mechanisms such as the multilateral convention on mutual administrative assistance in tax matters, bilateral tax treaties or tax exchange agreements. In limited circumstances, secondary mechanisms including local filing, can be used as a backup.
Extension to reporting deadline
The first CbC reports for 31 December 2016 year end Groups were due to be filed by 31 December 2017. However this deadline was extended by Revenue eBrief No. 107/17 to 28 February 2018 due to late changes to the CbC Reporting facility.
Notifications
Whilst an Irish entity may not have a reporting requirement, it may still be required to provide certain notifications to the Irish Revenue Commissioners.
Notifications must be provided to the Irish Revenue Commissioners by the last day of a company’s financial year. Therefore a company with an accounting period beginning 1 January 2017 must notify the Irish Revenue Commissioners by 31 December 2017 (this was also the case for 2016).
Are you CbC ready?
- is your group turnover greater than €750 million in 2015 or 2016?
- did you file a notification with Revenue this year/last year?
- is your ultimate parent resident in Ireland?
- is an information exchange agreement in place?
- do you have to make alternative filing arrangements?
Some practical issues to consider
- filing of notifications;
- conversion of data to XML format for filing on Revenue Online Service;
- OECD CbCR definitions/accounting issues; and
- cross jurisdictional compliance with CbCR (e.g. surrogate parent/EU designated entity).
Contact
For further discussion on how the CbC reporting obligations might affect your business, please contact a member of our team.
