This is the second part of the authors’ blog on the Proposal for a Council Directive on Business in Europe: Framework for Income Taxation (BEFIT) that the European Commission (EC) published on 12 September 2023. In this part we present our observations on the envisaged EU corporate tax framework BEFIT proposal. Reference is made to…

This is the first part of the authors’ blog on the Proposal for a Council Directive on Business in Europe: Framework for Income Taxation (BEFIT) that the European Commission (EC) published on 12 September 2023. In this part we present an outline of the backgrounds and basic elements of the BEFIT proposal. Reference is made…

[1] ‘You are so beautiful’ was a famous song from Joe Cocker. When DEBRA (the draft Debt-Equity Bias Reduction Allowance-directive) arrived many tax lawyers responded very positively. At last, a directive which offers enterprises something positive instead of taking away benefits. The question is, however, will this new baby grow up to be a very…

Ivan Ozai (Osgoode Hall Law School, York University) Increasing concerns about anthropogenic climate change have motivated governments to strengthen policies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. One of the most novel policy issues under discussion in the European Union is the implementation of a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) to equalize carbon prices on EU-produced…

Legend has it that a medieval hero of Spain, the Castilian knight El Cid, won a battle after death when his wife strapped his dead body to his horse, knowing that his reputation as an invincible warlord would make his enemies run away in fear. Something similar is happening to Eqiom: while our tax authorities…

For some time now, Poland and Hungary have been under scrutiny from the European Commission for their violation of the rule of law, as we read with some regularity in the daily press. Recently, Poland was even fined by the European Commission. One of the defenses of these Member States is that the EU itself…