Tax – more than just a cost
Taxes are no longer just a financial topic, companies are also increasingly recognising their social value. As the largest source of government revenue, they serve to finance the social community.
Tax reporting is therefore an important tool for companies to demonstrate their "fair share" of financial contribution to society, public services and infrastructure, and economic development.
Our international survey shows the extent to which companies are already making use of this.
CSRD and public CbCR
The landscape of tax reporting has been evolving over many years. The most significant recent developments are originating from the EU and relate to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the public CbCR Directive.
Already established reporting standards, such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Standard&Poor's Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct and the WEF Metrics also play an important role when it comes to reporting on a company's taxes.
These frameworks, as well as country- and industry-specific differences in their application, are highlighted and analysed in the study.
269 listed companies from Austria, Brazil, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, Spain, South Africa and the United Kingdom are covered, whose public company reports were used to create a dataset of more than 40,000 individual pieces of data. The study thus presents the currently most comprehensive overview of international tax transparency and sustainability reporting in 2023.
The study indicates:
- Strong regional and sector-specific differences in tax reporting
- Qualitative tax information is reported more frequently than quantitative information
- A slight increase in tax transparency in the DACH region compared to the previous year
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Anna Kraus