The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has reminded significant global entities to file, by February 15, 2018, their country-by-country (CbC) reporting statements for the year ending December 31, 2016.
CbC statements must be filed through: Business Portal (using file transfer), Tax Agent Portal (using file transfer), or Standard Business Reporting External Link (using SBR-enabled software). The ATO will not accept paper or email filing of CbC statements.
A penalty may apply for each CbC reporting statement that is filed after the due date, the ATO warned.
CbC reporting is part of a three-tiered approach to transfer pricing documentation (along with “master” and “local” files) developed under base erosion and profit shifting Action 13. The legislation – Subdivision 815-E of the Income Tax Assessment Act, 1997 – implementing CbC reporting in Australia was passed in December 2015.
An entity is said to be a “significant global entity” for a period if it is a global parent entity whose annual global income is AUD1bn or more, or is a member of a group of entities consolidated (for accounting purposes) where the global parent entity has an annual global income of AUD1bn or more. The definition includes both Australian-headquartered entities (with or without foreign operations) and the local operations of foreign-headquartered multinationals.