The Link between Taxation and Corporate Governance

Abstract

When thirty five national tax Commissioners from member countries of the OECD’s Forum on Tax Administration met in September 2006, two things were on their minds:

• Organizational reforms to develop more effective tax administration, and

• Countering non-compliance in an international context.

And in relation to the second of these the Commissioners focused principally on:

• Improved use of risk management;

• Encouraging top management and audit committees of large enterprises to take a greater interest in, and personal responsibility for, tax strategies;

• Improving transfer pricing guidelines and ensuring their consistent application;

• Examining the role of tax intermediaries — law and accounting firms, financial institutions, etc — in relation to non-compliance and the promotion of unacceptable tax minimization arrangements; and

• Expanding the OECD’s 2004 Corporate Governance guidelines to give greater attention to the linkage between tax and good governance.

Not surprisingly, these were also the themes discussed most when the Commissioners of the four countries which set up the Joint International Tax Shelter Information Centre (JITSIC) met in Canberra, Australia just recently. The Commissioners meeting there felt that JITSIC had been very effective in its first two years but an increased focus on risk management, better international exchange of information and further engagement with corporates to make tax a keystone of corporate responsibility statements were seen as essential steps to ensuring improved compliance.