In recent years, the global economic climate has put many governments under severe pressure as regards their spending programmes and the need to generate higher tax revenues to help with the reduction of public sector deficits. This pressure has included an increasing focus from investors, civil society organisations, the media and others for companies and individuals to be seen to be making their contribution to the public purse. For some, increased transparency around tax is seen as an essential part of the answer to help deal with these issues.

Since we published our last briefing on tax transparency and country by country reporting nearly two years ago, the introduction of mandatory tax reporting rules has accelerated. The changes covered in this publication include:

• Rules for reporting country-by-country data to tax authorities under the The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action 13

• Revised guidelines for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative

• Final rules for US listed extractive companies under Dodd-Frank Section 1504

We also look ahead to the discussions in the European Union on how public country-by-country reporting might be developed for large multinational companies.