UK government empowered to publish multinationals’ country-by-country reports

5 September 2016, a late amendment to the UK Finance Bill 2016 empowers the government to force UK-based multinational corporations to publish details of their corporation tax payments on a country-by-country (Cubic) basis.

The existing Bill contained a provision to oblige multinationals to include Cubic breakdowns in their reports to HMRC and required them to publish a summary of their group tax strategy. However the late amendment, proposed by Labour MP Carolyn Flint, requires multinationals to include the Cubic breakdown in the published tax strategy, if the government so orders.

Treasury Minister Jane Ellison said it would only use the new power where it was “agreed on a multilateral basis” that it would apply to both UK and non-UK resident groups. On this basis, the government supported the amendment.