EU Commission Notice on notion of State aid
On 19 May 2016, the EU Commission (EC) published its final Notice on the notion of State aid. The Notice updates the EC’s Notice on the application of the State aid rules to various measures including those relating to direct business taxation (98/C 384/03), which essentially sets out the EC’s view on how State aid
New single annual bank tax announced
On Friday the 13th, the Council of Ministers approved a draft bill of law establishing a new single annual bank tax replacing four different existing taxes, with a view to a better distribution of the tax burden between small and large banks. Overall, it leads to a tax increase of EUR 55 million. As a
European Commission proposes an EU Directive on public Country-by-Country reporting
As already referred to in our newsflash of 13 April 2016, the European Commission has developed a proposal for a directive which, if approved by the European Parliament and Council of Ministers, will require public country-by-country reporting (CbCR) of tax and other financial data by large companies in the European Union (EU). The proposed directive will amend the existing
The Belgian Supreme Court ruled that income derived from a received abnormal or gratuitous benefit constitutes a minimum tax base
If an intra-group transaction is considered as “abnormal or gratuitous” – i.e. not being arm’s length –, Belgian tax law prescribes a transfer pricing adjustment. An abnormal or gratuitous benefit received by a Belgian company from an affiliated enterprise cannot be offset against tax losses and other deductible items available to the Belgian company, such
Belgium – budgetary control 2016: reform of corporate tax regime announced
On 9 April 2016, the federal government reached an agreement on additional budgetary and recovery measures following the 2016 budgetary control exercise. To keep the budget on track, among others the following tax measures have been agreed: Reform of the Belgian corporate income tax regime. The corporate income tax regime will be reformed in order
Final list of tax havens published
On 10 and 11 March 2016, the final Royal Decrees regarding the revised list of tax havens that apply for the so-called dividends received deduction (‘DRD’) and the reporting obligation for payments (to tax havens) have been published in the Belgian Official Gazette. The Royal Decrees did not make any changes to the lists included in
EU Member States reach agreement on mandatory automatic exchange of financial information on country-by-country reporting (CbCR)
On 8 March 2016, the Member States of the European Union reached a political agreement on the automatic exchange of country-by-country reporting (CbCR) at a meeting of the Ministers of Economic and Financial Affairs in Brussels. The CbC reports contain tax-related financial information of multinational companies. The agreement is, however, still subject to the scrutiny
The Rulings Commission publishes ruling request templates
The Belgian Rulings Commission has recently published ruling request templates. These templates have been prepared in an effort (i) to facilitate access to tax rulings and (ii) for transparency purposes. Ruling request templates have been made available in Dutch and in French for the following relevant transactions: Mergers, Partial demergers, Contribution of a line of
