Basic Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS)

Abstract

By Basic Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) we mean the set of fiscal nature strategies that some companies put in place to erode the tax base (heroes base) and therefore deduct taxes from the tax authorities. The transfer of profits (profit shifting) from high-imposition countries to countries with no or reduced taxation is, in fact, itself a strategy that leads to the erosion of the tax base. Such practices are allowed: from aggressive tax strategies in contexts with a high rate of innovation, digitalization and globalization; from the rigidity of tax systems in the face of extreme “flexibility of corporate income”; from the possibility of separating the imposition of income sources from the economic activities that generate them; by the absence of coordination and by the presence of asymmetries between the different national tax regimes, for example in terms of a different treatment (for tax purposes) of the components of the company balance sheet (interest, dividends, etc.) and a non-uniform evaluation of the recurring items associated with intra-group and non-group transactions. The aim of this paper is to examine the new rules undecided by the OECD to counter the erosion of the tax base and the artificial transfer of profits—thus stemming the substantial capital outflows—to those countries that offer privileged taxation or, in the more extreme cases, towards tax havens.