Global Tax Transparency and Tax Sustainability Reporting Study 2024

At PwC, we have been at the forefront of tax transparency for many years, from the Total Tax Contribution Framework to the development of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) tax metrics for the International Business Council (IBC) and the World Economic Forum (WEF). We continue this work in our “Tax Transparency and Tax Sustainability Reporting 2024” study, which provides our first comprehensive global assessment of the tax and tax-related sustainability reporting of multinational corporations (MNCs).

We publish this research at a critical time given the rapidly approaching wave of reporting legislation, as well as some of the most significant developments in international tax for a generation. The scale and pace of these changes, and the amount of additional data required to comply can, at times, feel overwhelming.

We share the results of our latest review of the voluntary tax and tax-related sustainability reporting of over 850 companies based on market capitalisation, across 21 countries.  This study uses the PwC Global Tax Transparency Framework (“the Framework”) of 37 broadly defined tax reporting criteria grouped into four categories: Approach to Tax, Tax Governance and Risk Management, Tax Numbers and Performance, and Total Tax Contribution and the Wider Impact of Tax.

The Framework has been developed to support and guide companies as they formulate their own tax transparency strategies, prepare for increasingly complex tax reporting regulations, and respond to greater demands for tax and tax-related sustainability information from stakeholders.

The Framework aligns with the disclosure criteria from the following external standards:

• GRI 207: Tax 2019 
• The tax portion of the S&P Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) 
• The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises 
• The World Economic Forum’s Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics on tax, and 
• The EU Minimum Safeguards on taxation.  

In the study, we focus on:

• Public Country-by-Country Reporting 
• Total Tax Contribution  
• Tax and the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)  
• Tax strategy and sustainability  
• Regional differences, focal points and trends in tax transparency reporting 

The study reveals:

• Significant variation in tax transparency and tax-related sustainability reporting by country and industry.  
• Companies in the Energy, Utilities and Resources industry on average are the most transparent on taxes, this is largely driven by existing reporting obligations.  
• Only 2.7% of the total companies reviewed disclose their country-by-country reporting information.¹ 
• 222 companies disclose their Total Tax Contribution. 
• 117 companies, or 13.4% of the total, were assessed as being aligned with the EU’s Minimum Safeguard on tax - a critical component for ensuring compliance with the EU’s CSRD.² 
• More than half the companies reviewed published a tax strategy. This was often driven by regulatory requirements at a national level and any MNCs lacked a consistent global approach to disclosure. 

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