News

BRUSSELS 5 NOVEMBER 2019 EU Ministers to Discuss VAT-Related Directives The EU finance ministers sitting at Council level (ECOFIN) will discuss this Friday 8 November three VAT related files and may reach an agreement on the two legislative proposals concerning transmission and exchange of VAT-relevant payment data. In addition, a Directive amending the VAT system [...]

BRUSSELS 28 OCTOBER 2019 Tax Transparency: European Parliament Push on Public CbCR The European Parliament voted on 24 October a resolution backing EU-wide public country- by-country reporting of taxes paid by large multinational companies. The text of the proposed directive was already approved by the European Parliament in 2017, but Member states could not agree [...]

BRUSSELS 21 OCTOBER 2019 EU and the United Kingdom Reach a New Withdrawal Agreement The European Commission issued a recommendation to the EU Member states to endorse a renegotiated Withdrawal Agreement with the UK, including a revised Protocol on Northern Ireland, and a revised Political Declaration defining the post-Brexit framework of the EU-UK future relationship. [...]

BRUSSELS 7 OCTOBER 2019 CFE Celebrates 60th Anniversary in Torino Under the high patronage of the European Parliament, CFE Tax Advisers Europe celebrated its 60th Anniversary with a series of events, including General Assembly, the inaugural Global Tax Advisers Platform conference and technical committee meetings held over three days in Torino, Italy, hosted by the [...]

BRUSSELS 30 SEPTEMBER 2019 EU Court Delivers Fiscal State Aid Judgments The General Court of the EU delivered the long-anticipated first instance judgments in the fiscal State aid cases of Starbucks and Fiat. In the case Netherlands v Commission (Starbucks), the Court annulled the Commission decision, which had originally established that the Netherlands had awarded [...]

BRUSSELS 23 SEPTEMBER 2019 Apple’s State Aid Appeal Heard by EU General Court Apple’s €14 billion Euro appeal against the EU Commission’s 2016 decision that Ireland’s tax authorities granted Apple a “selective advantage” by failing to employ appropriate profit allocation methods to calculate the Irish source income of the Irish Apple branches, in contravention of [...]

BRUSSELS 16 SEPTEMBER 2019 EU Finance Ministers Discuss Energy Taxation at Informal ECOFIN Meeting At the informal ECOFIN meeting which took place from 13 to 14 September in Helsinki, Finance Ministers discussed enhanced action on climate change and energy taxation across the two days of the meeting. Ministers discussed the Commission report concerning Energy Taxation Directive published last week, [...]

BRUSSELS 9 SEPTEMBER 2019 Von der Leyen to Present the New EU Commissioners The elected President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen will present the composition of the new College of Commissioners on Tuesday, Ms von der Leyen announced on Twitter. Reportedly all but one EU Member state (United Kingdom) have submitted personal proposals [...]

BRUSSELS 2 SEPTEMBER 2019 OECD Officials’ ‘Back to School’ In-Tray: Digital Tax - New Proposals due 17 October Whilst many of us were on summer holidays, the OECD officials and working parties were busy reconciling the key policy concerns of the members of the Inclusive Framework that aim for a broad agreement on international taxation. [...]