05/12/2016 - The OECD’s work to advance tax certainty specifically includes work to improve the timeliness of processing and completing mutual agreement procedure (MAP) cases under tax treaties and to enhance the transparency of the MAP process. As part of this work, the OECD makes available to the public, via its website, annual statistics on the MAP caseloads of all its member countries and of non-OECD economies that agree to provide such statistics. MAP statistics are now available for the 2015 reporting period. 

Improving the effectiveness of dispute resolution mechanisms is an integral component of the work on BEPS and is the aim of Action 14 of the BEPS Action Plan (read the Final 2015 Report on Action 14 of the BEPS Action Plan). One of the principal outcomes of the work on Action 14 is the commitment by OECD and G20 countries to a minimum standard with respect to the resolution of treaty-related disputes. As part of the Action 14 minimum standard, members of the Inclusive Framework on BEPS will report MAP statistics pursuant to an agreed reporting framework ; such reporting will provide a tangible measure of the effects of the implementation of part of the minimum standard. The MAP statistics made available for 2016 and following years will accordingly contain additional information and will include reports from a significant group of non-OECD economies, most of which do not currently report MAP statistics to the OECD.

The MAP statistics now made available correspond to the 2015 reporting period (MAP statistics were provided earlier for reporting periods 2006 through 2014). Considered in the aggregate, MAP inventories in OECD member countries at the end of these reporting periods show a continuous increase from 2006 to 2015, with a slight decrease in 2010. For those countries that reported them, the average cycle times for cases completed, closed or withdrawn decreased in 2015 (20.47 months) as compared to 2014 (23.79 months). The separation of reported MAP cases into cases with other OECD member countries and cases with non-OECD economies continues to show, in general, that more than 90% of OECD member countries’ MAP inventories are cases with other OECD member countries.

For purposes of the 2015 MAP statistics now made available, the reporting framework and the definitions of terms used in reporting – as well as the other results of the proposals in the 2004 Committee on Fiscal Affairs (CFA) report on improving the resolution of cross-border tax disputes – are described in detail in the CFA’s 2007 report Improving the Resolution of Tax Treaty Disputes.

For more information on the MAP statistics, please visit www.oecd.org/tax/dispute/mutual-agreement-procedure-statistics.htm or contact Grace Perez-Navarro (+33 1 45 24 18 80), Deputy Director of the OECD's Centre for Tax Policy and Administration.