The largest and wealthiest taxpayers have a significant impact on government revenues and revenue bodies devote considerable time and resource to managing their tax compliance and taxpayer service issues.  To support this work the FTA provides a forum for revenue bodies to come together to develop new strategies to improve the impact they make on both tax compliance and taxpayer service.  Four recently published reports provide an insight into current trends and approaches to working with the largest businesses and wealthiest individuals – these reports should prove valuable not only to revenue bodies but also to large businesses, individual taxpayers and the tax intermediaries that advise them. 

 

Guidance Note Compliance Management of Large Business Task Group: Experiences and Practices of Eight OECD Countries

With 34 out of 43  surveyed countries setting up specialist units it is clear that a growing number of revenue bodies are taking a targeted approach to dealing with large businesses.  This guidance note provides an overview of the arrangements used by eight OECD revenue bodies to effectively work with large businesses, highlights common compliance issues and identifies innovative practices and programs used to respond to these challenges.

 

Information Note General Administrative Principles: Corporate governance and tax risk management

Effective tax risk management is an essential element of strong corporate governance; its importance has been highlighted in several FTA reports.  This latest report contains case studies from three countries – Australia, Canada and Chile – which together suggest a common set of best practice considerations that may assist other tax administrations.

 

Building transparent tax compliance with banks

Banks play a vital role both in the global economy, and in the functioning of many countries’ tax systems. However the extent that banks use, facilitate, or promote aggressive tax planning schemes also poses a significant risk to tax systems.  Against the backdrop of the current global financial and economic crisis, this study explores the involvement of banks in aggressive tax planning, and identifies the benefits to both revenue bodies and banks from relationships based on greater transparency, trust and co-operation.

 

Engaging with High Net Worth Individuals on Tax Compliance

High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) present revenue bodies with particular challenges: the complexity of their affairs; the amounts of tax revenue potentially at stake; the opportunity to undertake aggressive tax planning and the effect of their compliance behaviour on the overall integrity of the tax system. This report aims to improve the understanding by tax administrations of the HNWI taxpayer segment, the use of aggressive tax planning schemes by HNWIs and the prevention, detection and response strategies used to respond to these challenges.