© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The brand of Amazon is seen on the door of an Amazon Books retail retailer in New York Metropolis, U.S., February 14, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Picture
(Reuters) – Twenty-four Amazon (NASDAQ:) traders are urging the tech large to step up transparency in tax disclosures and undertake a brand new reporting normal, the Monetary Occasions stated on Sunday.
Asset managers Nordea, Royal London and a number of other giant European and U.S. pension funds are amongst these pushing for Amazon to subject a transparency report in keeping with International Reporting Initiative (GRI) tax normal, the newspaper stated.
They wish to deliver a shareholders’ decision demanding the brand new normal on the firm’s annual assembly this 12 months, it stated, citing a letter to be despatched this week to the U.S. regulator, the Securities and Change Fee.
“Aggressive tax practices can expose an organization and its traders to elevated scrutiny from tax authorities, adjustment dangers, and improve their vulnerability to adjustments in tax guidelines,” the traders stated.
These measures come at a time when nations need to defend their tax bases from deleterious practices, they added within the letter seen by the FT.
The 100 teams that signed the letter included a number of environmental, social and governance-focused and non secular funds, though not all have been traders, the paper stated.
An Amazon spokesperson declined to touch upon the decision, however pointed to final month’s no-action request when the corporate barred an analogous shareholder proposal.
“The proposal implicates precisely the kind of atypical enterprise points for which decision ought to stay with the corporate’s administration and board,” Amazon stated.
It could be impractical for shareholders to train direct oversight of such points, it added.
Amazon’s present in depth tax disclosures are in keeping with U.S. usually accepted accounting rules (“GAAP”), it stated, including that it has publicly reported tax funds in america, Britain, France, Italy and Spain.
A December shareholder proposal by the Larger Manchester Pension Fund and Oblate Worldwide Pastoral Funding Belief urged Amazon to undertake the brand new GRI tax normal, and make public breakdowns of economic, tax and employee info by nation.
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