Professor Jim Stewart:

That is one of the issues. Obviously facts differ in each case and, therefore, decisions are made on a case by case basis. All we could say is that Revenue decides on a case by case basis but that depends on the facts. This is not public information. Although we do know that the US Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations considered, and from some well known cases, that Revenue has taken a very lenient approach to the definition of where a company is located. However, we must remember that where companies claim to be located they may often not have employees and it may simply be an address of a legal firm, company formation agent or whatever. There may be no substance there at all. That is why the OECD wants to tackle this matter.

By the way, it is not just the OECD that wants to do so. Individual countries have taken unilateral action. PricewaterhouseCoopers conducted a study of 200 multinational companies. It found that in 37% of the cases the companies were in dispute with revenue authorities, in various countries, on where they were located or had a permanent establishment.