KPMG’s Global Responsible Tax Project recently held a roundtable in collaboration with KPMG IMPACT, to look at the technical difficulties of designing a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).
While the “carrot” of tax incentives may be useful to drive, or even kick start investment into new technology or regions, the recent roundtable discussion confirmed they are not the key issue in unlocking green investment. Similarly, while environmental taxes and reducing fossil fuel subsidies can help redirect investment into green projects, there are already many investors willing to fund...
Tax incentives can play a potentially important role in encouraging green investment, but must be transparent and clearly linked to environmental benefits. There is a need to broaden the base of investors which is likely to require mechanisms to reduce risk – for example through blended finance projects. Obtaining tax certainty, especially over the treatment of structures which require intermediate...
While there were differing views about the respective merits of net wealth taxes versus gift or estate and inheritance taxes and the need for specific exemptions from such taxes, participants generally agreed that it would be more efficient for tax systems to seek to treat capital income on a more equal footing with earned income and then, generally, either tax...
Institutional investors agreed that generally, certainty over the tax cost or duration of any incentives was more important in the investment decision than the actual tax cost. Nevertheless, reducing the tax cost on inward investment and providing transferable research and development credits would encourage investment into green projects – as would reducing current subsidies for fossil fuels. Overall tax risk...
No pressure to reduce corporation tax rates generally; any cost based incentives should be targeted, temporary and timely; multilateral approaches and cooperation are needed to avoid adverse spill overs, tax competition and a growth in compliance and double taxation. There is support of the work of the OECD on Pillars 1 and 2 as well as for a European common...
How we manage through this period will define how we come out of it
Virtual Responsible Tax roundtable: The new reality
On 20 June 2019 a roundtable was held in London with a group of tax directors to discuss the digitalization of the economy, the future of corporation tax and the proposals being debated by the OECD Inclusive Framework.
New and big pressures are building that are going to force change on the global tax system. There are many concerns: growing inequality within countries and the shift of income away from labour to capital which has occurred over the last 50 years; aging populations; how best to tackle climate change; more generally, how to finance the UN Sustainable Development...
A roundtable on the future of corporation tax and the OECD’s consultation on the impact of digitalization was held in Nairobi on 15 March 2019. The clients attending were from a range of industries including banking, private equity, oil and gas, and logistics.A theme which emerged was that renegotiating the global accord on international tax is not the highest priority...
On 27 February 2019 I attended a seminar organized by ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) in Brussels, entitled “Tax as a force for good: Rebalancing our tax systems to support a global economy fit for the future.” The seminar discussed a report produced by ACCA of the same name. The thesis of the report is that the foundations...
Professionals in the member firms of KPMG International1 (“KPMG”) welcome the opportunity to comment on the OECD’s public consultation document entitled “Addressing the Tax Challenges of the Digitalisation of the Economy,” released on 13 February 2019 (the “Consultation Document”). The Consultation Document describes proposals that are being worked on through the Task Force on the Digital Economy (the “Task Force”)...
Without effectively taxing financial transactions, the inequality gap will continue to widen.— Without effective taxes on capital, extreme concentrations in wealth occur.— The trading of derivatives was originally conceived to help mitigate future risks on crops and homes by locking in prices or expunging obligations. It has now become a speculative market.— Modernizing the UK’s stamp duty on shares —...
During the first conference of the Platform for collaboration Tax, “Taxation and SDGs” (the UN Sustainable Development Goals), held in New York, 14 16 February 14-16, 2018 KPMG hosted a side event entitled The Role of Responsible Tax.
Is it more important to change tax laws or behaviours? What role do we all have to play?The third in the series of global Roundtables took place in Amsterdam on September 25 2017, with sixteen senior representatives from the worlds of politics & policy, media, NGOs, academia, corporations and (tax) advisory.
