Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS)
- BEPS is a term used to describe tax planning strategies that exploit mismatches and gaps that exist between the tax rules of different jurisdictions.
- It is done to minimize the corporation tax that is payable overall, by either making tax profits ‘disappear’ or shift profits to low tax jurisdictions where it is little or no genuine activity.
- In general BEPS strategies are not illegal; rather they take advantage of different tax rules operating in different jurisdictions.
- BEPS is of major significance for developing countries due to their heavy reliance on corporate income tax, particularly from multinational enterprises
- (MNEs).
- The BEPS initiative is an OECD initiative, approved by the G20, to identify ways of providing more standardised tax rules globally