EU/EEA
A Directive on Tax Dispute Resolution was adopted by European Member States early in October 2017. It had been proposed by the European Commission 1 year ago as part of the Corporate Tax Reform Package, along with the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) and the amendment of the Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive (ATAD) regarding hybrid…
Adoption of the EU Council Directive on Tax Dispute Resolution Mechanisms in the European Union on 10 October 2017 is a milestone in international tax dispute resolution. The Directive offers a uniform mechanism to address tax treaty disputes among EU member states that meets the BEPS Action 14 minimum standard, and largely renders the arbitration…
Controlled Foreign Corporation rules are a hot issue in Europe and beyond. Last year, EU countries agreed to have national CFC rules in force by 2019. The Big Four – Germany, France, Italy and Spain – need to make minor changes only to their existing rules. (Like in the accountancy profession, there used to be…
The decision of the CJEU in Republic of Austria v Federal Republic of Germany (Case C-648/15) on 12 September 2017 is a landmark decision in tax treaty dispute resolution. Han Verhagen raised important questions about the Court as an arbitrator for tax treaty disputed in his blog-post on 13 September 2017. One obvious benefit in…
On 12 September 2017, the CJEU confirmed that it has jurisdiction over a dispute between Austria and Germany regarding the interpretation of a double tax convention entered into between the two Member States under article 273 TFEU.[1]CJEU 12 September 2017, case number C-648/15, Opinion delivered by Advocate-General Mengozzi on 27 April 2017. The case was…
The objective of the EU Merger Directive (“MD”) is to remove tax obstacles to cross-border restructuring operations while safeguarding the financial interests of the Member States.[1] In aligning these two aims, the MD employs a carry-over relief mechanism at both company and shareholder level. Through the carry-over mechanism at shareholder level, laid down in Article…
This contribution lays down a general plan for what the EU should do in order to attain a harmonized set of norms regulating the allocation of taxing rights among Member States and in the relation between those States and third countries, which would benefit both Member States and their taxpayers by eliminating several instances of…
Intermediaries (such as: tax advisors, accountants, banks, and lawyers) who design tax structures are now on the Commission’s radar. She recently proposed extensive transparency rules on the basis of which information about cross-border tax structures – bearing certain ‘hallmarks’ – will now have to be reported by the intermediary to the national tax authority (‘reporting…
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament recently finalized the amendments to the existing Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD). This decision was based on the related proposal of the European Commission, submitted in July 2016.EU initiatives in this direction – including adoption…
On 21 June 2017, the European Commission released its Proposal on transparency rules for tax intermediaries. It primarily seeks to address concerns raised by the ECOFIN Council and the European Parliament in trying to investigate and tackle the role of intermediaries in tax evasion and tax avoidance schemes of multinational companies. New rules impose an…
An analysis from a State Aid perspective. This contribution focuses on the profit split methodology in light of current EU Commission’s investigations in the area of tax rulings and transfer pricing[1]. Prior to my points, I shall make some brief preliminary comments to set the scene. According to the EU Commission a tax ruling confers…
A world of tax without disputes is an illusion. It is just as much an illusion as a world without tax. Tax and disputes come together inseparably. Disputes is not something to be ashamed of – I say this in particular to authorities. Nor – and it this meant more for taxpayers – to be…
In March 2017, the OECD and the IMF published a report on tax uncertainty (Report) confirming that such uncertainty exists and impacts on business and investment. Similar was the outcome of an earlier survey one year ago by the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation: Measuring Corporation Tax Uncertainty Across Countries. The issue is of…
General On February 9, 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) rendered its decision in the X v Staatssecretaris van Financiën (‘X’). The case concerned the possibility of applying the Schumacker doctrine to a non-resident taxpayer in the situation where he earned almost all his income not in one but in several…
