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IPS129 Claudia V. et al.
IMF Task Force & decision tree
Although international manuals and organisations have emphasised the
importance of separating out transactions and positions related to SPEs in FDI
statistics, there has been an outstanding requirement for an internationally
agreed definition of SPEs. With this in mind, the IMF Committee on Balance of
Payments Statistics created the TFSPE in 2016 with a two-year mandate. The
TFSPE’s final report can be found here.
The TFSPE conducted a survey on the legal and national definitions of SPEs,
their measurement and activity. Using this information, a SPE definition was
proposed that included an upper limit of up to five employees, while no
specific numerical threshold is recommended to account for physical presence
and/or physical production. SPEs were also defined to be directly or indirectly
controlled by non-residents, who set them up with the objective of: accessing
capital market of financial services, isolating financial risk, reducing regulatory
or tax burden, and/or safeguarding the confidentiality of transactions.
Using this definition and information gathered from the survey, the TFSPE
produced a decision tree and typology. The decision tree was produced to
allow national statistical institutes to classify entities as SPEs, while the
typology was produced to provide context around the type of activities
undertaken by SPEs – but was not designed to be an exhaustive list of activities
undertaken by SPEs.

Data sources
To estimate the proportion of FDI attributable to SPEs, data linking was
undertaking at using microdata from the FDI population and the Inter-
Departmental Business Register (IDBR). FDI estimates used in this paper are
for the 2016 reference period, consistent with results published December
2017.

The Inter-Departmental Business Register
The IDBR is a comprehensive list of 2.6 million businesses in all parts of the
UK economy, other than the very small businesses and some non-profit
making organisations. The two main sources of input are Value Added Tax
PAYE income tax from HM Revenue and Customs. Additional input comes
from Companies House, Dun and Bradstreet, business surveys and businesses
profiling.

The Foreign Direct Investment population and survey
The FDI population is produced from four sources:
• Combining IDBR and Dun and Bradstreet (D&B) data to identify cross-
border business relationships between UK businesses and foreign
parents or subsidiaries (majority relationships).

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