Introduction and EU law applicable On 8 March 2017 the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereafter “CJ”) delivered its decision in the Case C-448/15, Wereldhave, dealing with the interpretation of the “subject to tax” requirement provided for the application of the Parent-Subsidiary Directive (both Directive 90/435/EEC and Directive 2011/96/EU). Under article 1(1) of Directive…

On 16 February 2017 the Public Consultation on the proposed introduction of rules at EU level to disincentivize promotion of aggressive tax planning schemes was closed. The rules under consideration focus on a Mandatory Disclosure Regime (MDR) – referred to also as a Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes (DOTAS) regime. Under such rules, tax advisers…

The Italian Supreme Court issued a landmark case (n. 27113 December 2016) setting out the principles to be taken into account when analyzing whether a company can be deemed the “beneficial owner” for the purpose of being entitled to double tax treaty benefits. In particular, the Italian Supreme Court examined whether a company resident for…

Much changed in the world of taxation the last couple of years. The OECD started and finished the BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit shifting) project. The objective of BEPS was to develop rules that would prohibit multinational enterprises to implement tax avoiding structures or tax evasive set-ups. The EU investigated the tax structures of Apple,…

Italy has embarked upon the challenging task of redesigning its tax system.  The Act[1] of late November 2016 (hereinafter, “Act”) constitutes a best-practices example, or at least for our Country. The above Act illustrates the national fiscal policy for the coming 3-year period, i.e., for 2017 – 2019, specifying the primary objectives and the guidelines…

The European Union’s Court of Justice finally rendered its judgement in the famous Banco Santander and Autogrill cases on 21 December 2016. For state aid specialists and tax lawyers this decision was bound to be a landmark case whatever way it would turn out. In this decision the Court essentially had to decide on the…

A global silver alert for fair and efficient tax systems is active already for a couple of years. The heated debate sparked all over the world has engaged national governments, NGOs, international organizations as well as each and every taxpayer – or tax evader. The EU has been driving the discussions and – most importantly…

The transition from bilateralism to multilateralism in regard of international law-making seems to be a relentless work in progress. Nobody contests that multilateralism would be – legally speaking – preferable. On the other hand, the governments of the G20 have been constantly hesitant regarding a multilateral surveillance of their macroeconomic policies. Formally, the treaties are…

The Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive (ATAD) is the European answer to the phenomenon of BEPS: Base Erosion and Profit Shifting. Characteristically for tax avoidance by Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, is that it takes place within multinational groups (MNE’s). Therefore, the ATAD applies to these groups of companies. Nevertheless, the European Commission has chosen to also…

As previously reported on this Blog the EU Anti-Tax Avoidance Package was presented on 28th January 2016. The package included: –          Recommendation on Tax Treaties –          Amended Directive on Mandatory Exchange of Information (CbC) –          External Strategy for Effective Taxation –          Anti-Tax-Avoidance Directive (ATAD) The overall policy objective of the package is: –          Effective taxation:…

On September 14th, 2016, the Brazilian Federal Revenue Service (“RFB”) published the Normative Instruction RFB No. 1,658/2016, which included legal entities incorporated as holding companies in Austria in the list of privileged fiscal regimes. Although the list mentions “legal entities incorporated in the form of holding company“, the wording is imprecise, because the administration of…

An important question in the context of the recovery of fiscal state aid, is how the amount of the tax advantage to be recovered should be calculated. Recently, the Dutch legislator released a draft legislative proposal on the recovery of state aid. The starting point taken in this draft proposal is that the taxpayer should…

Introduction. I have been actively supporting an EU based corporate income tax to reflect the single internal market rather than a fragmented framework with 28 competing tax laws. I’ve done so since the early 1990’s, after the publication of the Ruding Report (following earlier proposals by eg. Van den Tempel).  The CCCTB approach as introduced…

Tax practitioner’s in the northern hemisphere taking their summer holidays may well have included the OECD discussion draft of 5 July 2016 on the attribution of profits to permanent establishments as part of their holiday reading (a mere 40 pages). See post on July 21, 2016. Over 50 organisations and individuals submitted comments(published by the…