Financial burden posed by BEPS rules

The government has published a consultation ‘Tax deductibility of corporate interest expense’ seeking views on the implementation of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s base erosion and profit shifting action 4.

It follows the Budget announcement that the new rules will be introduced from 1 April 2017. Responses should be emailed by 4 August.

Daniel Head tax partner at KPMG said this latest consultation addressed some of the concerns raised in the previous one published in October 2015 such as the exclusion of foreign exchange movements from the definition of interest but that ‘little compromise’ has been reached on other areas.

He said it was clear from the length of the document that there was a ‘significant amount of detail to work through to ensure the rules are effective and achieve the desired purpose’. This brought into question whether the...