In advance of this month’s annual general meetings at ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, Oxfam America calls on shareholders to vote in favor of robust tax transparency measures.
Oxfam's shareholder resolutions with the three oil giants, demanding that the companies publish regular tax transparency reports in line with the tax standard of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the world’s most utilized corporate reporting framework, will soon come to a vote. ConocoPhillips’ shareholders are set to convene in Houston on May 16th, while ExxonMobil and Chevron will hold their AGMs virtually on May 31st.
"Investors and the public deserve to know whether these companies’ successes are based on risky and artificial tax practices,” said Daniel Mulé, Oxfam America’s policy lead for extractive industries, tax and transparency. “If Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips have nothing to hide, they should have no problem joining the growing number of companies publishing this essential information."
Public country-by-country reporting (pCbCR), a key component of the GRI tax standard, is already common in much of the extractive sector, with major players including Shell, BP, Newmont and Rio Tinto disclosing voluntarily.
Endorsement for pCbCR has also come from a wide range of investors. According to Oxfam's calculations – which draw on compilations by the FACT Coalition, CICTAR, and PIRC – investors with over $10 trillion in assets under management have publicly expressed their support for increased tax transparency through public country-by-country reporting. The UN PRI, the leading proponent of responsible investment, has also called for public reporting of country-by country information.
“Public country-by-country reporting is the new norm,” said Ian Gary, the FACT Coalition’s Executive Director. “Australia is set to begin mandating the practice, and many other nations are likely to follow suit. Companies that resist tax transparency are facing a wave of shareholder resolutions demanding reform. It’s obvious that responsible tax practice is good for investors, and investors know it.”
The scale of investor support for pCbCR shows that tax transparency is crucial for shareholders to properly evaluate and mitigate any possible material risks to their investments.
“Aggressive tax avoidance creates legal, regulatory, and reputational risks for investors, and it also undermines fair competition and the critical infrastructure on which all businesses rely,” continued Mulé. “Companies have a clear choice: they can simply publish the tax information they have already collected, or they can fight a losing battle against a tax transparency movement backed by over $10 trillion in investor power."
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NOTES TO EDITORS:
The $10 trillion statistic was calculated by aggregating the assets under management of the below list of investors who have publicly expressed support for pCbCR. The full list of investors is included in the methodological note here.