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
Belgium: agreement on tax shift
On 23 July 2015, the Belgian federal government reached an agreement on the so-called “tax shift”. The tax shift is mainly aimed at i) reducing the tax burden on labour, ii) improving the competitiveness of Belgian companies and iii) creating more jobs. It involves the introduction of a number of new tax measures that may impact
OECD releases model documents for implementing BEPS country-by-country reporting
On 8 June 2015, the OECD released a “Country-by-Country Reporting Implementation Package”. The package includes model legislation the OECD suggests could be used by countries to mandate filing of country-by-country reports (“CbCRs”). The model legislation does not attempt to address the filing of the so-called master file or local file reports. The key takeaway is
OECD Discussion Draft on transfer pricing aspects of hard-to-value intangibles published
The OECD has published a discussion draft on the arm’s length pricing of intangibles when valuation is highly uncertain at the time of the transaction or the intangibles are hard to value. The discussion draft, released on 4 June 2015, is part of Action Item 8 of the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS)
European Commission takes the next step in its EU-wide State aid review of tax ruling practices
On 8 June 2015, the European Commission announced its next steps in its EU-wide State aid review of Member States’ tax ruling practices. The European Commission states in its press release that, following the December 2014 enquiry, Estonia and Poland refused to respond in full detail to the information request. Therefore, the Commission has now
European Commission publishes decision to investigate the Belgian excess profit provision
The non-confidential version of the European Commission’s opening decision announcing the formal investigation into the Belgian Excess Profit provision embodied in section 185 §2, b) of the Income Tax Code was published in the EU’s Official Journal on 5 June 2015. Beneficiaries of excess profit rulings are requested to submit their comments at the latest one
Revised OECD Discussion Draft on Treaty Abuse published
On Friday, 22 May 2015, the OECD issued a Revised Discussion Draft on BEPS Action 6: Prevention of Treaty Abuse (the RDD). The RDD includes a simplified Limitation on Benefits (LOB) Article for inclusion in the OECD Model Income Tax Convention and provides ‘conclusions and proposals’ on 20 targeted issues. Most of the proposals are
Revised OECD Discussion Draft on permanent establishments – PwC Newsflash published
As mentioned in the news alert published on 18 May 2015, the OECD issued a revised discussion draft on preventing the artificial avoidance of permanent establishment (‘PE’) status under Action 7 of the BEPS Action Plan. The earlier OECD proposals, which set out alternative approaches to a number of significant PE issues, have been replaced by
