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Article

24 May 2013

Author:
Prem Sikka, Professor of Accounting, Univ. of Essex in The Conversation

Country by country reporting is a victory for citizens over companies

The Twitter age is about to chalk up its first success in the grey world of corporate accounting. It has been reported that the European Union will seek to make large companies disclose the taxes they pay and profits they make on a country-by-country basis. This is part of the crackdown on corporations avoiding their obligations…The idea behind country by country (CbC) reporting is to enable citizens to scrutinise corporate practices and ask critical questions…It could even be used to demand information about carbon emissions and other corporate footprints in each country…Armed with this information, citizens may be able to construct shadow accounts and question conventional accounts offered by corporations – the ones that say, “we are good citizens, we pay taxes and really care for the community”.