On 5 June 2024, the Australian government presented new legislation in the parliament titled Treasury Laws Amendment (Responsible Buy Now Pay Later and Other Measures) Bill 2024. The bill includes public country-by-country (CbC) reporting, among other measures.
The public CbC reporting measure mandates that certain multinational entities operating in Australia publicly disclose specific tax and other information on a jurisdictional basis. This also includes a statement on their tax approach, starting from reporting periods on or after 1 July, 2024.
The introduction of this legislation follows the release of the public Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting exposure draft on 12 February 2024, which succeeded an earlier draft from April 2023. This latest bill has been drafted after significant policy and drafting changes were made between the April 2023 draft and the revised version released in February 2024.
The CbC reporting measure will complement existing CbC reporting provisions under subdivision 815-E of the Income Tax Assessment Act (ITAA) 1997, which aligns with Australia’s implementation of the OECD’s CbC reporting requirements.
The Australian regulations are largely modeled after the narrative and quantitative reporting aspects of the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) Sustainability Reporting Standards in accordance with GRI 207-1 and 207-4.
Under these rules, in-scope groups should provide the following general information to the Australian Commissioner of Taxation:
- Its own name;
- Names of each entity in the CbC reporting group;
- Description of the CbC reporting group’s approach to tax;
- Detailed quantitative tax information for the specified income year across the relevant jurisdictions where the CbC reporting group operates.
This information will be publicly accessible on an Australian government website, and the selected tax information must be submitted within 12 months following the end of the reporting period.
