As part of the OECD’s work to improve the timeliness of processing and completing mutual agreement procedure (MAP) cases under tax treaties and to enhance the transparency of the MAP process, the OECD makes available to the public, via its website, annual statistics on the MAP caseloads of all its member countries and of Partner economies that agree to provide such statistics. The OECD has now released MAP statistics for the 2013 reporting period.
The MAP statistics now made available correspond to the 2013 reporting period (MAP statistics were provided earlier for reporting periods 2006 through 2012). Considered in the aggregate, MAP inventories in OECD member countries at the end of these reporting periods show a continuous increase from 2006 to 2013, with a slight decrease in 2010. For those countries that reported them, the average cycle times for cases completed, closed or withdrawn decreased in 2013 (23.57 months) as compared to 2012 (25.46 months).
The OECD said it intends to continue to collect and make available MAP statistics from later periods as such information becomes available, which will provide useful information on longer-term trends in MAP caseloads. The collection of this data will inform the work the OECD is doing to improve dispute resolution processes such as the Multilateral Strategic Plan on Mutual Agreement Procedures recently launched by the Forum on Tax Administration and Action 14 of the BEPS Action Plan, which aims to make dispute resolution mechanisms more effective.
[LTN 229, 26/11/14]