Lew: Treasury to implement international tax recommendations

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said Friday that the Obama administration would implement new rules that would lead to sharing business’s information with foreign governments.

Lew praised the final recommendations from an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development project meant to battle offshore tax avoidance, saying there was a “critical need to fix our tax rules to address erosion of our corporate tax base.”

{mosads}The OECD unveiled its final Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) recommendations this week.

Speaking at a Group of 20 meeting in Peru, Lew added that “we are already engaged in the process of BEPS implementation, including country by country reporting by large multinational firms, and will continue to work to advance this important agenda.”

The business community has expressed some concern about the BEPS recommendations, which would force companies to give information about their operations to tax administrations in both their home country and elsewhere.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have questioned whether the Treasury Department has the authority to implement some of those rules.