Greece Implements EU Rules on Exchange of Country-by-Country Reports

On August 1, 2017, Greece published Law No. 4484 (the “Law”) in the Government newspaper, The Hellenic Democracy. The Law implements EU Directive 2016/881 (amending Directive 2011/16, which was previously amended by Directives 2014/107 and 2015/2376) on the mandatory automatic exchange of tax information (e.g., country-by-country (CbC) reports) into domestic legislation. See BEPS Action 13.

Greece has previously incorporated Directive 2011/16 into domestic legislation (Articles 1 to 25 of Law 4170/2013), as well as its amending Directives 2014/107 and 2015/2376 (Articles 1 to 4 of Law 4378/2016 and Articles 1 to 6 of Law 4474/2017, respectively).

The following article 9AA should follow article 9A of Law 4170/2013:

The ultimate parent entity of a multinational enterprise (MNE) group having its tax domicile in Greece, with a total consolidated income of at least €750M (or an approximate equivalent amount in local currency in January 2015) in the tax year immediately preceding the reporting tax year, must submit a CbC report for the relevant year within 12 months from the last day of the group’s reporting tax year.

The CbC report should include the following information about the group:

• Aggregate information on the amount of income before tax, income tax paid, income tax payable, share capital, accumulated profits, number of employees and tangible assets (not including cash or cash equivalents) in respect of each jurisdiction in which the group operates.
• Identification of each constituent entity, including the jurisdiction of tax domicile or the jurisdiction in which it is organized, as well as the nature of its main business activities.

The CbC report should be exchanged within 15 months of the last day of the group’s tax year to which the CbC report relates. The first CbC report with respect to the group’s tax year starting on or after January 1, 2016 should be exchanged within 18 months of the last day of that tax year.

The Law also says that a constituent entity resident in Greece, which is not the group’s ultimate parent entity, submits the CbC report for the group’s reporting tax year of which it is a constituent entity if both of the following criteria are met:

• Entity has its tax residence in Greece.
• One of the following conditions applies:
  • Ultimate parent entity is not required to submit the CbC report in its jurisdiction of tax residence.
  • The jurisdiction in which the ultimate parent entity is domiciled has not entered into any competent authority agreement with Greece at the time of submission of the CbC report for the reporting tax year.
  • There has been a systemic failure of the ultimate parent entity’s jurisdiction of tax residence, and the constituent entity that is tax domiciled in Greece has been notified of this failure.

On January 27, 2016, Greece was among the 31 countries that signed the OECD Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on the Exchange of Country-by-Country Reports (the “CbC MCAA”). Among other things, the CbC MCAA provides that CbC report information will be used to assess high-level transfer pricing and other BEPS-related risks, but not as a substitute for a detailed transfer pricing analysis of individual transactions and prices based on a full functional and comparability analysis.