The Dutch tax office has made 14,619 advance tax agreements with international companies since 1991 and refused a further 1,590, the Financieele Dagblad says on Monday.

The figures were sent by tax minister Eric Wiebes to a European Commission committee which is looking into the abuse of advance tax agreements, the paper says.

Brussels has set up a special committee to look at the way European countries compete to attract multinationals with advance tax rulings and other incentives.

The Dutch investigation focuses on the agreements made between the tax office and coffee company Starbucks. The other deals involve Apple in Ireland and Amazon and Fiat in Luxembourg.

Transparency

Wiebes has also written to the committee stating that the Netherlands would like to play a pioneering role in improving the transparency around dealing with tax evasion.

From next year, international companies with operations in the Netherlands and turnover of at least €750m will have to fill in a special ‘country by country’ report detailing the way they divide up their global profits and the amount of tax paid.

In addition, the Netherlands plans to sign agreements with 23 developing countries aimed at stopping the abuse of tax deals, Wiebes said.

The treaties will allow African countries to make claims against companies which try to shift profits via the Netherlands for tax purposes or which only have a letterbox company in the country.