The OECD’s Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) offers a global roadmap that will allow governments to collect the tax revenue they need to serve their citizens. It was produced at the request of the G20 and introduced at the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting in Moscow. The Action Plan identifies 15 specific Actions that will give governments the domestic and international instruments to prevent corporations from paying little or no taxes. The ambitious timeline for implementation of these 15 Actions is late 2014, early 2015.

It highlights the gaps in the interaction of domestic tax rules of various countries, the application of bilateral tax treaties to multijurisdictional arrangements, and the rise of the digital economy with the resulting relocation of core business functions have led to weaknesses in the international tax system. It advocates an approach of building consensus-based changes which will  address double non-taxation and cases of no or low taxation where taxable income is artificially separated from the activities that generate it. An obstacle to such a policy outcome is unilateral action that could result in a resurgence of double taxation as well as global tax uncertainty.

Australia and Britain agreed in July 2013 to a shared agenda to combat tax avoidance and evasion. Australia will join the pilot scheme for the multilateral exchange of tax information established by Britain along with France, Germany, Italy and Spain in April 2013.