The BEPS Project aims to provide governments with clear international solutions for fighting corporate tax planning strategies that exploit gaps and loopholes of the current system to artificially shift profits to locations where they are subject to more favourable tax treatment.
The OECD work is based on a BEPS Action Plan endorsed by the G20 in July 2013, which identified 15 key areas to be addressed by 2015; with 7 actions delivered in September 2014 as outlined below.
| The first seven elements of the Action Plan focus on helping countries to: | |
 | Address the tax challenges of the digital economy (Action 1); |
 | Ensure the coherence of corporate income taxation at the international level, through new model tax and treaty provisions to neutralise hybrid mismatch arrangements (Action 2); |
 | Counter harmful tax practices (Action 5); |
 | Realign taxation and relevant substance to restore the intended benefits of international standards and to prevent the abuse of tax treaties (Action 6); |
 | Assure that transfer pricing outcomes are in line with value creation, through actions to address transfer pricing issues in the key area of intangibles (Action 8); |
 | Improve transparency for tax administrations and increase certainty and predictability for taxpayers through improved transfer pricing documentation and a template for country-by-country reporting (Action 13); and |
 | Facilitate swift implementation of the BEPS actions through a report on the feasibility of developing a multilateral instrument to amend bilateral tax treaties (Action 15). [dlo_lcp TEXT_OPT=”EXCERPT” NUMBERPOSTS=”99″] |