Understanding the realities of global tax transparency – let’s get practical

Prior to embarking on any journey, it is important to understand the global landscape. If tax transparency was a continuum, with the left-hand side being the minimum standard and the right-hand side being absolute tax transparency, most entities would, as you guessed, be somewhere in between. Considering the wide range of corporates seen spanning this continuum - some want to simply do what is bare legal compliance with the law; some wish to take the first steps into publishing their tax plan, governance etc.; others want to start putting out the data, putting out country by country data; and some are even doing the whole gamut. Understanding where you currently sit on this continuum as well as where you want to be can be imperative in helping to ensure that everyone in the business, be it tax, sustainability, or the C-suite, has a clear idea of where they are starting, and where they want to end. The boundaries of this continuum will likely shift over a period of time as new legislation and tax transparency precedents are set, making the need for a well-defined plan for this journey very important.

As entities move along the tax transparency continuum it is important to remember that this movement is going to be a journey. While there is no one approach that is right for this journey, there is certainly a direction of travel here towards greater transparency. An ever-evolving landscape does not allow for a one-size-fits all approach and corporates should aim to remain agile throughout the journey.

KPMG professionals have described the tax transparency journey using five broad steps - tax policy drafting/review; tax risk and governance design/review; tax transparency benchmarking (note that can be done at any time in the process); tax risk and communication assessment; and tax impact/transparency/contribution reporting (referred herein as Tax Impact Report(ing)). These five steps provide a framework that can be utilized regardless of the starting point and facilitate corporates to engage in the tax transparency conversation.

By utilizing the aforesaid framework corporates should be able to clearly plan for their tax transparency journey and be able to report their tax information, through a Tax Impact Report, accurately and timely while knowing where they sit relative to their peers.

KPMG Tax Impact Reporting is best explained as a simple two-part equation: the qualitative plus the quantitative. One may consider this equation as - what is the story, how do the users understand your approach to tax, tax governance and how the business structure aligns to the upcoming data, plus, the data being the total tax footprint broken down by country, by type of tax, by business segment, etc.

When you combine KPMG Tax Impact Reporting Framework plus KPMG Tax Footprint Analyzer, you combine the qualitative with the quantitative. KPMG Tax Impact Reporting Framework provides a tailorable report structure that covers main elements of tax transparency disclosures required by existing standards and criteria and the KPMG Tax Footprint Analyzer is a technology solution that helps corporates identify taxes paid data across several types of tax. The KPMG Tax Footprint Analyzer allows an entity to categorize and show their data in a way that is accessible and user friendly.

The elements of KPMG Tax Impact Reporting combine to provide broad tax contribution information contextualized for stakeholders. A KPMG Tax Impact Report can help - utilize the KPMG Tax Transparency Framework to provide structure and content; bridge the expectation gap; understand and explain the corporate’s broader tax contribution; lead on visible action in the responsible tax and social arena; and address voluntary and mandatory reporting requirements. A corporate’s Tax Impact Report could have a flexible look and feel, whether the company prefers texts, tables, infographics, or any other way it prefers to showcase itself. All these are important aspects of a transparency report; KPMG Tax Impact Reporting’s flexible framework and ability to integrate the qualitative and quantitate aspects, in line with a chosen tax transparency standard, can facilitate companies as they navigate towards their desired reporting outcome.

KPMG Tax Transparency Framework adopts the PACT approach. PACT (Purpose, Approach, Contribution and Tax Analysis) provides a simple guideline for developing the report structure while addressing the tax transparency aspirations of the company.

Purpose – This is to tell the readers about the company or group’s business and why the company has chosen to be more transparent about its tax activities. It can help to set the tone for the rest of the report and outline what main elements are included or omitted and why.

Approach - The group’s approach to tax should be elaborated. This may include elements detailed in the standard ‘GRI 207’, namely the company’s tax principles, policies and approach and how it monitors compliance with these through governance and risk management. It may also include details of how it approaches tax incentives, low tax jurisdictions and other key sensitivity issues or attributes. The approach should give context to its tax contribution data which should follow.

Contribution - Working together, the company should make decisions on the various kinds of taxes and contributions that should be reported. KPMG professionals can then use a data-driven approach to collect, validate, and present the company’s global tax contribution data. This can include all types of tax, from all jurisdictions and, if appropriate, reconciled to public accounts or OECD CBCR data.

Tax Analysis - With greater visibility over the company’s tax data, meaningful analysis can take place. This can be against any internal targets or external metrics. KPMG professionals may also provide testing of the company’s tax controls and assurance over tax contribution data.

Tax transparency is as much about data as it is about demonstrating the intent of a corporate towards accountable and responsible tax behavior. When it comes to data, the standard GRI 207 simply focuses on the country-by-country reporting (CbCR) data. However, a corporate usually has various kinds of contribution in the form of taxes, levies, cess, royalties, etc. that goes towards the government exchequer and may be considered as a source for public funding. In absence of any guidelines or regulations on this reporting (note that groups operating in certain sectors in certain jurisdictions, are subject to specific rules, e.g. some extractives companies must report additional payments to government information under the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative), corporates have the flexibility of defining the tax contribution amounts they decide to report, however, they would generally be advised following a specific and recognized standard for increased credibility.

The exercise is in annual reporting, and the objective is twofold, namely communicating that the tax is in fact paid on all applicable transactions and evaluating the value of the tax payments for the year. Since the actual payment for the year is reported, the reporting is usually on a cash basis.

Some observations with regards to the quantitative aspect of a Tax Impact Report can be summarized below:

• The basis of preparation should rely on underlying principles of data collection and reporting and be supported by adequate rationale of why those principles are appropriate
• Reporting of refunds and credits under various tax heads needs specific consideration
• Understanding and capturing industry specific taxes/cess royalties is an important parameter

The collation of data and documentation is an extensive exercise that ideally can be processed using technology. Currently, corporates are at varying degrees of maturity in so far as incorporating technology in their Tax Impact Report quantitative data processing.

Yes, KPMG professionals have a few technology solutions that may be leveraged depending on the specific aspects that a corporate may be looking for.

KPMG Tax Footprint Analyzer is a data extraction tool that can extract each tax-paid amount from every group company to show the group’s global tax footprint. It uses automated data extraction tools, accessing data from the underlying ERP tables and other sources. The solution performs data integrity checks and perform data analysis routines to support the validation process. Results are presented in dynamic, interactive visualization dashboards that allow users to drill down to the deepest level of detail and further visualization customization.

KPMG Tax Control Room is a progressive cloud-based solution that is designed to provide new insights into the management of tax. It allows the identification of specific actions that enhance the management of tax risks, reporting requirements of the head of tax, tax function performance and tax governance and controls. The Tax Control Room gathers insights through a range of questionnaires that are then automatically analyzed by the tool for benchmarking, identifying gaps and suggested actions. Tax Control Room is used in combination with workshops, desktop reviews and other advisory inputs.

The tax transparency journey is slowly but surely an expedition that multinationals should undertake sooner or later. The path is not well defined, but the GRI guidelines and various other initiatives taken up by some governments, non-government organizations as well as certain conscientious corporates have laid down principles and disclosure requirements for companies to adopt voluntarily.

Working with corporates who are at various stages in this journey, from initial onboarding to speaking with those who are evaluated against the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) criteria and have been updating their tax transparency report based on DJSI feedback, there are some interesting operational nuances that were observed:

• Firstly, it is important to understand that simple basic tax disclosures in the form of policy and principles are not sufficient. This is surely the first step towards the entire journey, setting the house in order with a uniform global tax policy and principles is an essential element. But thereafter effective implementation of the said policies and principles and demonstrating effective implementation and public disclosure is even more important.
• Secondly, corporates who are already undertaking sustainability reporting on the basis of GRI guidelines, should be considerate about claiming their alignment with GRI requirements. KPMG professionals often see companies which do not report on tax under GRI as they have scoped it as immaterial. However, because taxes paid by the group directly equates to revenues received by governments, that tax can have a large social impact and therefore to be material to any group reporting in accordance with GRI. It was also often seen that groups claim to report under GRI 207 Tax, but that they only perform partial reporting, aiming to ensure this is remedied is critical now that GRI 207 is effective for reports or other materials published under GRI from 1 January 2021. 
• Thirdly, it is important for corporates to be aware of any sustainability standards they or their industry may be already signed up to or regulations which are applicable, and understand if there are required tax disclosures or available guidelines and thereafter analyze their readiness to report on the various tax disclosures. Thereafter mapping the journey to achieve full alignment on all disclosures relevant to their specific industry and start working towards the same in small definite steps, can be a key to success.
• Finally, it is important to remember that tax professionals are not usually communications experts and marketing personnel or investor relations personnel are rarely tax experts. However, releasing tax data and making extensive disclosures about a group’s approach to tax often involves releasing information which can be perceived as sensitive information and requires these stakeholders to engage in dialogue early and collaborate throughout the whole tax transparency process.

Since tax transparency is still voluntary (except in a few jurisdictions), beginning to discuss goals and work through issues means that the corporate can work out at its own pace rather than trying to meet certain mandatory disclosures under regulatory pressure. It means the group can take time and care to explain the tax data and approach to tax in an interconnected way giving stakeholders a better understanding of how the group approaches tax accountability and transparency.