Australia’s Senate Economics Legislation Committee has released its report on legislation introducing public country-by-country (CbC) reporting in Australia. The committee advised to approve the legislation with amendments to ensure the proposed CbC reporting standards align with globally recognised benchmarks.
These amendments should include:
- Implementing a five year deferral period for commercially sensitive data that would mirror the option in the EU Public CBC Directive. Amending the Legislation will allow companies to elect a five year deferral to disclose sensitive information to support the government’s transparency goals;
- Provide further details on how the ATO’s discretionary exemption would operate. It also recommends introducing witnesses for greater detail about how entities would go about applying for an exemption, what eligibility requirements they would have to meet, or what criteria the ATO would apply in considering applications;
- Aligning the non-cooperative jurisdiction list with the EU Directive 2021/2101. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) noted that the specified jurisdictions list for the proposed regime contained 41 jurisdictions compared to just 22 under EU Directive 2021/2101;
- Providing further detail on how jurisdictions will be listed or delisted;
- Reviewing the regime within one to two years of its commencement.
