Together with the NGO Oxfam, PenSam demands openness about the tax practices of the American oil giant ConocoPhillips. The demand will be made as a proposal at the company’s upcoming general meeting and will be made on the basis of cases of aggressive tax behavior and a general secrecy of tax information from the public.
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The American oil giant ConocoPhillips has come under fire in recent years because the company obscures key tax information from the public and has aggressively tried to reduce their tax payments. The latter became public knowledge when, back in 2020, ConocoPhillips reached a settlement with the Vietnamese government to repay billions in taxes after an extensive investigation determined that the company deliberately avoided paying taxes on a major corporate transaction.
The available indications point to an irresponsible tax practice in ConocoPhillips, which both contradicts the OECD code and recommendations for good tax behavior and goes directly against PenSam’s tax policy and fundamental values.
Therefore, PenSam is now entering into dialogue with the company to demand that the management of ConocoPhillips prepare a publicly available tax report that explains the company’s tax practices. The dialogue is taken together with the American office of the international NGO, Oxfam, which – like PenSam – has a central focus on promoting responsible tax behavior among companies.
Concretely, the proposal at the general meeting implies that the management must publish a so-called tax transparency report based on a number of internationally recognized principles and standards. This means, among other things, that ConocoPhillips must publish its tax policy and submit a country-by-country report detailing the company’s revenue, number of employees and tax payments in each country in which it is represented. Currently, this information is only shared with tax authorities and not investors or the public. The purpose of the proposal is to create transparency around the company’s tax practices, which have long been the subject of criticism and scepticism.
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