Deal aims to make evasion of taxes hard

Significant progress was made in fighting tax avoidance by multinational corporations at an international forum on taxation that brought 44 heads of tax authorities from around the world to Beijing, officials said.

Wang Jun, commissioner of the State Administration of Taxation, said China was among the six jurisdictions that signed a multilateral agreement last week to exchange information from reports by participating countries. The signing ceremony brought the total number of signatory countries to 39.

Country-by-Country reports are meant to provide tax administrations with a clearer picture of the global operation of multinationals and assist in the risk assessment of high-level transfer pricing. Transfer pricing can occur when companies within a multinational group trade with each other. It becomes a problem when the prices are manipulated to minimize tax bills.