Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will ask my colleagues to share with me the details of other countries we have written to. While they are doing that, I will deal with the Deputy's first question as to why we are dealing with our colleagues in Germany through a protocol. As he will be aware, most of our double tax agreements will be modified using a multilateral convention to implement tax treaty-related measures to prevent BEPS, which entered into force with respect to Ireland on 1 May 2019. However, in some cases a treaty must be updated bilaterally by protocol. This is generally where our treaty's partner's domestic law prevents it from implementing the BEPS changes through a multilateral instrument. This is the case for Germany. This is being done via a protocol as opposed to the broader multilateral instrument that we use elsewhere because of the compatibility of this issue with German domestic law.

The Deputy asked if I believed we should be adopting standards that are ahead of what is recommended in the OECD BEPS process. I would generally be cautious about that because my appreciation of these matters is that their force derives from the consistent implementation of the same standards elsewhere and in Ireland. If we were to develop or implement standards that are not consistent with the BEPS process, it might lead to issues of inconsistency with other jurisdictions.

The countries with which we have not signed a multilateral instrument and which we have contacted are Belarus, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Moldova, Montenegro, Thailand, the United States of America, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia. We have written to all of these countries with regard to this process. We have received an indication from some of them that they are willing to go ahead with a multilateral instrument. For example, Thailand has given this commitment. This is the status of the communication at present.