Corporate tax avoidance: Council agrees its stance on anti-avoidance rules
21 June 2016
The package builds on 2015 OECD recommendations to address tax base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS). The directive addresses situations where corporate groups take advantage of disparities between national tax systems in order to reduce their overall tax liability.
New provisions in five areas
The draft directive covers all taxpayers that are subject to corporate tax in a member states, including subsidiaries of companies based in third countries. It lays down anti-tax-avoidance rules in five specific fields:
-
Interest limitation rules. Multinational groups may finance group entities in high-tax jurisdictions through debt, and arrange that they pay back inflated interest to subsidiaries resident in low-tax jurisdictions. The outcome is a reduced tax liability for the group as a whole. The draft directive sets out to discourage this practice by limiting the amount of interest that the taxpayer is entitled to deduct in a tax year.
-
Exit taxation rules. Corporate taxpayers may try to reduce their tax bill by moving their tax residence and/or assets to a low-tax jurisdiction. Exit taxation prevents tax base erosion in the state of origin when assets that incorporate unrealised underlying gains are transferred, without a change of ownership, out of the taxing jurisdiction of that state.
-
General anti-abuse rule. This rule is intended to cover gaps that may exist in a country's specific anti-abuse rules. Corporate tax planning schemes can be very elaborate and tax legislation doesn't usually evolve fast enough to include all the necessary defences. A general anti-abuse rule therefore enables tax authorities to deny taxpayers the benefit of abusive tax arrangements.
-
Controlled foreign company (CFC) rules. In order to reduce their overall tax liability, corporate groups can shift large amounts of profits towards controlled subsidiaries in low-tax jurisdictions. A common scheme consists of first transferring ownership of intangible assets such as intellectual property to the CFC and then shifting royalty payments. CFC rules reattribute the income of a low-taxed controlled foreign subsidiary to its - usually more highly taxed - parent company.
-
Rules on hybrid mismatches. Corporate taxpayers may take advantage of disparities between national tax systems in order to reduce their overall tax liability. Such mismatches often lead to double deductions (i.e. tax deductions in both countries) or a deduction of the income in one country without its inclusion in the other.
Full press release
© European Council
