The VAT treatment of the activities carried out by public entities has traditionally been a source of debate. Article 13 of the VAT Directive offers a short and limited regulation of the activities of public entities for VAT purposes. Generally speaking, the activities of public entities acting as such (that is to say: when using…
Luisa Scarcella (DigiTax Centre at University of Antwerp; Member of the Working Party on Tax & Legal Matters) The recent rise in the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and crypto-assets accompanied by the rapid growth of crypto-assets providers has caught the attention of the EU regulator once again. Due to the heterogeneity in the…
For a number of years, endeavors to reform the Swiss federal withholding tax system with regard to the taxation of interest from collective debt instruments have been going on. The reform is generally aimed at strengthening the Swiss debt capital market. The latest proposals would completely do away with federal withholding tax on bond interest….
Mukesh Butani, Seema Kejriwal & Ajitesh Dayal Singh Introduction The Supreme Court of India recently settled a two-decade old dispute pertaining to taxability of software income. The Supreme Court ruled that payments to non-resident software vendors/licensors cannot be treated as payment towards royalty, and hence no withholding tax liability can be imposed on the resident…
Nevia Čičin-Šain and Joachim Englisch* The sixth amendment of the Directive on administrative cooperation has just been adopted by Council, on 22 March. Earlier drafts of DAC 7 have received certain attention mostly for the new regime of documentation and reporting obligations imposed upon digital platforms. However, the new Directive also features numerous other important…
Introduction The first part of my reflections on case C-77/19 Kaplan International Colleges UK (further referred to as Kaplan) concerned the relationship between membership in a VAT group on the one hand and a cost-sharing group on the other. In this article, I will comment on the questions referred to the CJEU, which the Court…
(The full version will be published in Intertax, vol. 49, 2021, issue 5) Nicole Gubbels, Assistant Professor (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Fiscal Institute of Tilburg University, the Netherlands) Society has changed considerably over the past 50 years. Whereas, previously, most people got married, had several children during the marriage, and divorce was still relatively rare,…
Introduction On November 23, 2020 Italian Tax Authorities (“ITA”) issued the Provision no. 360494/2020 (“Provision”) by which it introduced new measures[1] as for the content and validity of the transfer pricing documentation (“TPD”) – to be prepared by Italian resident enterprises and Italian permanent establishments of foreign entities – in order to benefit from the…
Welcome to the second tax post in the series of International Law Talk. During a series of podcasts, Wolters Kluwer will bring you the latest news and industry insights from thought leaders and experts in the field of International Arbitration, IP Law, International Tax Law and Competition Law. Here at Kluwer Tax Blog, we will…
On 18 November 2020, the CJEU delivered its judgment in case C-77/19 Kaplan International Colleges UK[1] (I will further refer to it as Kaplan). The questions which had been referred by the UK national court in the case had raised hopes that the CJEU would provide important clarifications as to the geographical scope of application…
On 4 March 2021, the CJEU issued a ruling on Frenetikexito (Case C-581/19) that is bound to throw Portuguese gym-goers off-balance. For some time, the Portuguese tax authorities have been assessing VAT on nutrition counselling provided by fitness studios on the basis such services are dependent and ancillary to fitness training. In a series of…
1. Background During the 21st Session of the UN Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters, the relevant members decided to include a new draft – Art. 12B on Automated Digital Services (ADS) as well as its Commentary – in the UN Model.[1] Concerning the agenda of the proposal, the Committee of Experts…
Introduction Real-time reporting is high on the European Union (EU) policy agenda. Hungary, Italy and Spain already implemented such a system, whereas France and Poland are planning to do so. Now that real-time reporting is even on the political table in Germany, it is not a question of if, but of when all EU Member…
Eleonor Kristoffersson (professor in tax law at Orebro University and visiting professor at Gävle University and Linköping University, Sweden)* Before the 1950s, no country applied Value Added Tax (VAT). Today, more than 70 per cent of the world’s population lives in countries with VAT, also called goods and services tax (GST). In this blog, the…
