Luxembourg, Cyprus and Seychelles removed from OECD’s list of uncooperative tax havens
On 30 October 2015, the OECD’s Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (‘Global Forum’) announced that Cyprus, Luxembourg and the Seychelles are no longer deemed to be non-compliant with the OECD Exchange of Information standard and assigned a new overall rating of ‘Largely Compliant’, following significant changes to their legal
Update – Netherlands – Case law on the 150 km criterion of the 30% regime
As mentioned in our headline of 27 February 2015, the European Court of Justice (‘ECJ’) issued a preliminary ruling on the question whether the 150 km criterion of the 30% regime for incoming workers is to be upheld. The ECJ was of the opinion that the 150 km criterion – in itself – does not
Update – Case law on exemption method for foreign employment income incompatible with EU Law
As mentioned in our headline of 15 July 2014, the Belgian tax authorities published a practice note (updating their position on to the attribution of personal tax benefits) after Belgium was sentenced by the European Court of Justice for breaching EU law. The relevant judgement indicated that EU law is violated where a taxpayer cannot
EU Commission’s final decisions in Starbucks and Fiat state aid cases
On 21 October 2015, the European Commission decided that Luxembourg and the Netherlands have granted selective tax advantages to Fiat Finance and Trade and Starbucks, respectively. These are illegal under EU state aid rules. For more information on the key aspects of the investigation and its impact, please have a look at our news alert.
Agreement on automatic exchange of information within the EU
On 6 October 2015, the EU Finance Ministers reached political agreement in the Council to amend Directive 2011/16/EU on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation. The revised directive will require member states to automatically exchange a basic set of information on advance cross-border tax rulings (rulings) and advance pricing arrangements (APAs), both of which
Automatic exchange of information of advance cross-border tax rulings from 1 January 2017
On 6 October 2015, the EU Finance Ministers reached political agreement in the Council to amend the existing Directive 2011/16/EU on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation (“the Directive”). The Directive will require the Member States to automatically exchange a basic set of information on advance cross-border tax rulings (“rulings”) and advance pricing arrangements
OECD recommendations on BEPS proposals for G20 and wider take-up
On 5 October 2015, multinational enterprises (“MNEs”) received final recommendations from the OECD’s base erosion and profit shifting (“BEPS”) project. This week, the G20 Finance Ministers are likely to agree on these OECD recommended changes to the international tax rules and to implementation plans. A number of non-G20 countries have also been involved in work
OECD is heading toward consensus on interest limitation rules
The OECD and country representatives of the OECD Working Party 11 (‘WP11’) are likely to recommend in the BEPS action plan that local interest limitation rules should focus primarily on an interest/EBITDA cap, whereby countries may set the cap within certain boundaries (30% and 10% likely to be put forward as upper and lower limits). As
