Comments on this draft PS LA are due by 5 September 2025.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has initiated a public consultation on the Draft Practice Statement Law Administration (PS LA 2025 /D1) on 3 July 2025.

This draft sets out the ATO’s proposed administrative approach to the Commissioner’s discretion for granting an exemption from Public country-by-country reporting obligations.

What this draft Practice Statement is about

Multinational entities subject to the Public country-by-country (CbC) reporting regime must publish selected tax information for Australia, specified countries and the remainder of their global operations. Reporting obligations apply to Public CbC entities for reporting periods commencing on or after 1 July 2024, unless they have been granted an exemption.

This draft Practice Statement provides the context about the obligations imposed by the Public CbC reporting regime and guidance about the authority that the law provides to the Commissioner to exempt an entity from those obligations under subsections 3DB(5) or (6) of the Taxation Administration Act 1953 (TAA).

The Public CbC reporting regime is separate from and additional to the reporting requirements imposed by Subdivision 815-E of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (ITAA 1997), which is sometimes called private or confidential CbC, that applies to income years starting on or after 1 January 2016.

All legislative references in this Practice Statement are to the TAA, unless otherwise indicated.

Scope of this Practice Statement

This Practice Statement outlines the considerations relevant to the exercise of discretion, the process for seeking an exemption from Public CbC reporting obligations, and the information applicants should provide when submitting an application for exemption.

As the decision-maker for an exemption application, the individual must adhere to the principles and guidance outlined in this Practice Statement when exercising the Commissioner’s discretion under subsections 3DB(5) or (6). However, the Practice Statement does not impose any directives or restrictions on the discretion to grant exemptions; each case must be assessed based on its specific facts and circumstances.

This Practice Statement does not apply to the exclusion from Public CbC reporting for government-related entities. This Practice Statement does not apply to the exemption provided in the law for classes of entities to be exempted by regulation or specified in a legislative instrument. While the principles in this Practice Statement may be relevant and informative to the Commissioner in considering whether to exempt a class of entities by legislative instrument, that is a separate exercise of authority.

When Public CbC reporting obligations apply

A reporting entity has Public CbC reporting obligations for a period if the following requirements are met in that period:

  • They, or a member of their CbC reporting group, are an Australian resident or a foreign resident operating an Australian permanent establishment;
  • Their aggregated turnover for the reporting period includes Australian-sourced income of AUD 10 million or more; and
  • They do not have a full exemption.

Public CbC reporting regime exemptions

Australia’s Public CbC reporting regime is designed to enhance multinational tax transparency by improving the quality of information disclosed by multinationals in and about the jurisdictions in which they operate. This information, when consolidated and reported in a consistent, standardised way, better indicates the scale of activity of an entity in a country and its commensurate tax contribution.

Exceptional circumstances

A reporting entity may seek a reporting exemption on any ground, which you will consider holistically based on the facts and circumstances set out in their application. Examples of the kind of matters that would be appropriate to consider, given in the EM, are:

  • impact on national security;
  • breach of Australian law;
  • breaching the laws of another jurisdiction, or
  • revealing commercially sensitive information.

The existence of these matters does not automatically entitle any entity to an exemption, and the absence of them does not preclude the discretion being exercised. A relevant factor in this consideration may include whether the information would be aggregated with other information and effectively disguised.

If the information is already in the public domain (or will be), can be readily obtained by the public (for example, by payment of an access fee) or could be deduced from such information, it is unlikely to warrant an exemption.

This would include financial reports, stock exchange disclosures, court or litigation documents, Hansard, leaked information, freedom of information disclosures or disclosures in other jurisdictions, submissions to parliamentary committees, information in the Corporate Tax Transparency Report, and information available on government websites such as AusTender or data.gov.au, as well as published research and development expenditure information.

The consultation on this draft PS LA is set to conclude by 5 September 2025.