AUSTRIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Raphael Holzinger, Matthias Jancura and Claudia Synek, Grant Thornton Austria
Further, Austria entered into the following multilateral agreements. • The EU Arbitration Convention. • The Convention on Mutual Administrative Assis - tance in Tax Matters (the “Mutual Administrative Assistance Convention”). • Multilateral competent authority agreements, such as: (a) the Multilateral Competent Authority Agree - ment on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information; and (b) the Multilateral Competent Authority Agree - ment on the Exchange of Country-By-Country Reports. • The Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting. The ATA publish a list of jurisdictions with which prop - er tax information exchange exists on an annual basis. 6.2 Joint Audits In principle, Austria is willing to engage in joint audits. Cross-border co-operation between tax administra - tions in the area of transfer pricing can take various forms (eg, tax information exchange, secondment of auditors and joint audit; see also 6.3 Simultaneous Controls ). The legal bases for such co-operation are usually the respective double taxation conventions, the Mutual Administrative Assistance Convention, or the Directive on Administrative Co-operation (DAC) in Direct Taxation. In the field of transfer pricing, joint audits represent a pivotal instrument in achieving final clarity on the rec - ognition of the arm’s length nature of transfer prices at the audit level. This approach effectively avoids the intensive and complex appeals and mutual agreement procedures that would otherwise be necessary for all parties involved. However, joint audits are seldom
EU‑AHG), which has been in force since 1 January 2013. According to this provision, the central liaison office or several member states may, upon proposal by the competent tax authorities, agree to conduct simultaneous controls. Authorised tax auditors have the possibility to partici - pate in simultaneous controls either through on‑site meetings in other member states or through the par - ticipation of foreign auditors in Austria. Furthermore, when information is requested from the competent Austrian authority, auditors may be present on the premises of the authority during official inves - tigations or may participate via electronic means of communication. Austria has already participated in several pilot pro - jects. However, simultaneous controls are still only applied sporadically in practice, and it remains uncer - tain when they will become a commonly used instru - ment. 6.4 International Compliance Assessment Programme (ICAP) Austria first joined the International Compliance Assurance Programme (ICAP) in the second pilot phase, which was launched in 2019; it has been part of the regular programme since the completion of this phase, which commenced in September 2021. At the EU level, the European Trust and Cooperation Approach (ETACA) has been developed, which closely resembles ICAP and has been in its pilot phase since March 2022. The programme is designed to enable a co-ordinated and expedited assessment of cross‑bor - der transactions by all tax authorities involved, thereby enhancing legal certainty for multinational enterprises. Austria participated in the first pilot phase and will also take part in the second phase – this is scheduled to commence in January 2026 with the admission phase, and is expected to conclude in September 2026 with the outcome phase.
applied in Austrian audit practice. 6.3 Simultaneous Controls
Austria has been conducting simultaneous controls since 2013. The current framework governing simul - taneous controls is laid down in Section 12 of the EU Administrative Assistance Act ( EU-Amtshilfegesetz
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