Insights

The Belgian presidency of the European Union will conclude in June 2024, and Hungary will take over the role until the end of the year. Considering the results of the June elections, it remains to be seen which EU direct tax initiatives will be prioritized and addressed.

Are there any Mutual Funds present within your organisation’s group structure that qualify as non-transparent? If so, take into account the proposed changes in transparency rules for Mutual Funds as per 1 January 2025. What will change and how do you prepare for it?

Do you receive dividends? If so, take into account a number of measures to improve the approach to dividend stripping, which involves avoiding dividend tax.

Differences in qualification of legal entities between different jurisdictions can lead to hybrid mismatches. To prevent these mismatches, two measures were proposed on Budget Day 2023: changes to the qualification of (foreign) legal forms and the abolishment of the consent requirement. What do these measures mean for you and what should you do now?

On 12 September 2023, the European Commission published the “Business in Europe: Framework for Income Taxation” (BEFIT) proposal. The BEFIT proposal consists of a new corporate income tax system and new transfer pricing rules. With the new corporate income tax system rules, the European Commission tries to align the corporate income tax bases of multinational groups that operate in the EU. When adopted, BEFIT will replace the current corporate income tax systems of EU Member States for certain EU based entities. In this alert, we will guide you trough the most important topics of BEFIT.

On the 12th of September 2023, the European Commission introduced the BEFIT initiative, also referred to as "the Proposal.". This initiative acknowledges the discretionary interpretations and implementations of the principle-based OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines by Member States, resulting in tax uncertainty, escalated compliance costs, legal disputes, and associated fees. Together, these constitute a high risk for double and over-taxation for cross-border businesses and, therefore, act as a barrier within the Single Market. Accordingly, the Proposal aims to harmonize transfer pricing rules across EU Member States by incorporating the arm’s length principle into EU law.

This article gives an overview of the latest country developments in e-invoicing and digital reporting. Furthermore, we review the latest EU developments and the reactions to the “VAT in the Digital Age” (ViDA) proposal. The article concludes with a view on expected further developments in e-invoicing and digital reporting and provides tips on how to prepare for the ViDA and e-invoicing.

The Dutch Minimum Tax Act, also known as Pillar 2, will come into effect on January 1st, 2024. These new rules will be applicable to multinationals with a revenue of over 750 million euro. With the implementation of the global minimum taxation, a lot of (new) administrative obligations will be introduced, including new deadlines and filings. In this memo, we will provide some insight into these filing and deadline requirements.

On January 17th, 2023, the European Parliament published its approval of the European Commission’s draft proposal for Anti-Tax-Avoidance Directive III (ATAD 3) under the condition that a few amendments will be made.

On 6 December, last, negotiators from the European Parliament and the EU-Member States concluded an agreement on a directive regarding the import of products that pose a threat of deforestation.

Given the proposed implementation dates, we recommend that entities begin assessing their current corporate structures to understand the potential consequences of ATAD III.

On May 11, 2022, the European Commission published an EU Directive proposal introducing a debt-equity bias reduction allowance (‘DEBRA’).

On the 30th of December 2020, the EU and China have concluded in principle the negotiations for a Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI). This agreement will create a better balance in the EU-China trade relations and, in our view, create even more opportunities in the future for foreign direct investment (FDI) between the EU and China.