Making Dispute Resolution Mechanisms More Effective – Consolidated Information on Mutual Agreement Procedures 2023

Australia

Recent developments relating to MAP in Australia prior to 15 August 2023

Developments relating to MAP in the tax treaty network

• Australia is conducting ongoing bilateral negotiations with Latvia, Colombia, Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania, Greece, Luxembourg and Portugal. None of these countries had previously agreed a tax treaty with Australia.

• Australia signed a tax treaty with Iceland in October 2022, which is fully compliant with BEPS Action 14.

Other developments relating to MAP

• Nothing to add currently in terms of updating MAP articles.

• Updated MAP guidance in August 2022.

Latest Action 14 Peer Review report

15 April 2021 - https://doi.org/10.1787/da7fc990-en

Tax treaty network of Australia

• 53 treaties, applicable to 53 jurisdictions (covering all treaties signed, although not necessarily in force)

• status of MLI: in force

Table 1. State of play of Australia's tax treaty network

Treaties in line with the Action 14 Minimum Standard following MLI impact	Treaties where actions are ongoing to make them in line with the Action 14 Minimum Standard	Following impact/actions, remaining treaties that are not in line with Action 14 Minimum Standard
21	0	20

Source: OECD

Australia's MAP programme

Organisation of competent authority function

• 12 persons:

  • one head of unit

  • 12 persons working on MAP cases (all of which work on other tasks as well):

    • of which 10 persons work on attribution/allocation cases and two persons work on other cases.

• contact persons for MAP requests:

  • for attribution/allocation cases: [e-mail]

  • for other cases: [e-mail].

Figure 1. Competent Authority Organisational Structure

Source: OECD

Table 2. Guidance on the MAP process

MAP guidance	Mutual agreement procedure, 25 August 2022	https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/International-tax-for-business/In-detail/Mutual-agreement-procedure/ (Section “How to request a MAP” to be referred to for form and content of a MAP request, including information requirements)
MAP profile	21 June 2019	https://www.oecd.org/ctp/dispute/australia-dispute-resolution-profile.pdf

Overview of Australia's MAP Statistics for 2022

Please refer to https://www.oecd.org/tax/dispute/map-statistics-australia.pdf for details with respect to Australia's MAP Statistics.

Figure 2. Cases closed in 2022

Source: OECD

Figure 3. Evolution of Australia's MAP caseload (2016-22)

Source: OECD

Table 3. Overview of Australia’s MAP caseload for 2022

Inventory for year 2022	Opening Inventory 1/1/2022	Cases started	Cases Closed	End Inventory 31/12/2022
Attribution/allocation cases	33	13	10	36
Other cases	31	19	31	19
Total	64	32	41	55

Source: OECD

Table 4. Australia’s average time to resolve MAP cases in 2022

Cases resolved in year 2022	Pre-2016 cases		Post-2015 cases		All
	Number of cases	Average time	Number of cases	Average time	Number of cases	Average time
				Start to End
Attribution / Allocation cases	1	173.06	9	19.39	10	34.76
Other cases	0	N/A	31	14.28	31	14.28
All cases	1	173.06	40	15.43	41	19.27

Source: OECD