To combat tax avoidance by multinational corporations, the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development introduced country‐by‐country reporting (CbCr), requiring firms to provide tax authorities with a geographic breakdown of their profitability and activities. Treating the introduction of CbCr in the European Union as a shock to private disclosure requirements, this study examines the effect on corporate tax outcomes. Exploiting the €750 million revenue threshold for disclosure and employing regression‐discontinuity and difference‐in‐differences designs, I document a 1–2 percentage point increase in consolidated GAAP effective tax rates among affected firms. I also find evidence consistent with a decline in tax‐motivated income shifting, starting in 2018. These results suggest that, although private geographic disclosures can deter corporate tax avoidance, so far, the regulations have had a limited effect on tax‐motivated income shifting. My findings have policy implications for the global implementation of private CbCr and extend the debate on public versus private disclosure of tax information.

In this study, we examine the effect of increased tax transparency on the tax planning behavior of European banks. In 2014, the European Union introduced public country‐by‐country reporting requirements to the banking industry. Treating this new requirement as an exogenous shock, we find limited evidence consistent with a decline in income shifting by the banks' financial affiliates in the post‐adoption period (starting from 2015). We do not, however, find robust evidence of a significant change in the consolidated book effective tax rates among the affected banks. Our findings suggest that increased transparency from public country‐by‐country reporting can deter tax‐motivated income shifting but that it did not appear to materially influence the banks' overall tax avoidance. Our findings have policy implications for the ongoing debate between the European Parliament, the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development, and accounting standard‐setting bodies on whether to require multinationals to publish country‐by‐country reports.