In July 2010, the U.S. Congress passed Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act, a measure requiring companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to publicly report how much they pay governments for access to oil, gas and minerals, country-by-country and project-by-project. The SEC is developing final rules to put the disclosure requirement into effect.
In October 2011, the European Commission issued draft directives requiring companies listed on EU stock exchanges and large private companies based in member states to disclose their payments to governments for oil, gas, minerals and timber, country-by-country and per project. After developing a final version, the European Parliament and European Council will send the measure to EU member states for implementation.
This fall is shaping up to be a critical season for financial transparency. As the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development prepares for its annual conference on October 6-7, key decisions on country-by-country reporting are anticipated in the U.S. and from the European Commission. Meanwhile, international attention to tax loss facilitated by financial secrecy continues to grow as the global economic crisis drags on.
Recently, PWYP Norway’s Piping Profits report highlighted the role regulatory gaps can play in shaping the tax strategies of multinational companies, often to the fiscal detriment of the countries they operate in. The report describes the complex web of subsidiaries ten of the world’s most powerful oil, gas and mining companies have created, showing that over a third of their 6,038 subsidiaries are located in ‘secrecy jurisdictions’ or ‘tax havens’.
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