Egypt signs anti-tax avoidance agreement

CAIRO – 9 June 2017: Egypt signed on Wednesday a multiparty agreement in Paris on international anti-tax avoidance. The agreement is within Egypt’s plan to benefit from international experience in profit transfer and tax base manipulation.

Deputy Minister of Finance Amr el-Monayer signed the agreement at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) headquarters in Paris after attending the annual session of the organization’s meetings.

The agreement aiming to improve Egypt’s anti-tax avoidance mechanisms includes 67 states with Egypt and Kuwait being the only Arab states.

This agreement is an extension of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) agreement signed through first initials in May, whereby Egypt was the first Arab state to sign.

BEPS refers to tax planning strategies used by multinationals to exploit gaps between gaps and mismatches in tax rules to artificially shift profits to low or no-tax locations where there is little or no economic activity.

The project was initiated by G20 in 2012 and is led by OECD.