News

On 22 February 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its judgement in the joined cases C‐398/16 and C‐399/16 X BV & X NV versus the Dutch State Secretary of the Ministry of Finance (Staatssecretaris van Financiën). These cases were referred to the CJEU in July 2016 and deal with the ‘per element’ approach, as established by the CJEU in C‐386/14 Groupe Steria, for the Dutch fiscal unity regime, in particular concerning interest deductibility and currency losses. In its judgement, the CJEU followed the conclusions of the Advocate General (AG) of 25 October 2017.

Zoals bekend is het nieuwe kabinet voornemens de Wet deregulering beoordeling arbeidsrelaties (Wet DBA) te vervangen. De Wet DBA was bedoeld om duidelijkheid te scheppen over de vraag wanneer een arbeidsverhouding een dienstbetrekking is. Echter, in plaats van duidelijkheid te scheppen leverde de wet veel verwarring en onrust op onder zelfstandigen en opdrachtgevers. Vanwege alle commotie rondom deze wet was de handhaving van de wet al eerder opgeschort tot 1 juli 2018.

Op 31 januari 2018 heeft de Nederlandse regering, in het kader van de invoering van het UBO-register, het concept uitvoeringsbesluit Wwft 2018 (“Conceptbesluit”) gepubliceerd, waarin wordt aangegeven welke categorieën personen in ieder geval als uiteindelijk belanghebbenden (Ultimate Beneficial Owner oftewel UBO) moeten worden aangemerkt.

De in dit Conceptbesluit gebruikte UBO-definitie zal naar alle waarschijnlijkheid overeenkomen met de definitie voor het UBO-register, ook al heeft het Conceptbesluit specifiek betrekking op de verplichte identificatie van de UBO’s achter een rechtspersoon of samenwerkingsverband in het kader van de dienstverlening door bepaalde instellingen.

A-G Niessen concludeert op 15 december 2017 (publicatiedatum 5 januari 2018, zie ELCI:NL:PHR:2017:1397) dat de box 3 heffing onder omstandigheden onredelijk is en buiten toepassing moet worden gesteld indien dit leidt tot een individuele en buitensporige last. De A-G adviseert de Hoge Raad de zaak te verwijzen naar een ander gerechtshof om te om te onderzoeken of er sprake is van een individuele en buitensporige last.  

In a recent decision, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) issued a favourable judgement regarding too general anti-abuse legislation for holding companies. For the ECJ, both the treatment of the EU parent company’s shareholders and the nature of the economic activities of the EU parent company – criteria adopted by the German anti-abuse provisions under question – are irrelevant for pre-assessing abuse. This decision could have a major impact on the applicability of anti-abuse provisions and substance requirements for holding companies within the EU, including the Netherlands.

On 15 December, 2017 the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that a request to create a fiscal unity between Dutch sister companies with a joint parent company established in a third non- EU/EEA country does not have to be granted by the Dutch Tax Authorities. The judgement follows the earlier Opinion of the Advocate-General, but is opposed to the judgement of the Court of Appeal Arnhem-Leeuwarden.

On Tuesday 19 December, the Dutch Senate adopted the legislation to abolish dividend withholding tax in treaty situations and to amend dividend withholding tax position for cooperatives as from 1 January 2018. For more info on these changes, click here. The new legislation will entry into force on 1 January 2018.

On Saturday 2 December, the Senate voted 51 to 49 to pass an amended version of the tax reform bill.

Following our newsletter on the extension of the Dutch dividend withholding exemption to all treaty countries (click here), the Dutch State secretary of Finance has now published the declaration that needs to be filed with the Dutch tax authorities when applying…

Als vervolg op onze nieuwsbrief over de verruiming van de Nederlandse inhoudingsvrijstelling op deelnemingsdividenden naar alle verdragslanden (klik hier), heeft de Staatssecretaris van Financiën vorige week de nieuwe opgaaf dividendbelasting gepubliceerd. Indien de inhoudingsvrijstelling wordt toegepast moet de belastingdienst hierover worden…

On November 2, the House Republican's tax reform bill – the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – was released. This bill is 429 pages and should provide for extensive tax reform. The bill would immediately reduce the statutory tax rate to 20% and move to a territorial system of taxing foreign profits with anti-base erosion provisions for both US-based and foreign-based multinational companies. A new excise tax of 20% will be introduced on deductible payments from US companies to related foreign companies that in fact acts similar to the border adjustment in the House Republican Blueprint, but only for outbound payments. A brief summary of the other key provisions is provided below. President Trump intends to sign the bill before the Thanksgiving holiday, but there are several unpopular provisions that will potentially get push-back and changes are likely to be made. Given the current political US landscape and the unprecedented situation, the last major US tax reform took place in 1986, this seems an optimistic outlook. Of course we will keep you posted on updates following the legislative process.

Introduction According to Dutch transfer pricing legislation (article 8b of the Dutch Corporate Income Tax Act), Dutch tax payers need to have documentation available that demonstrates the arm’s-length nature of transfer prices applied to intra-group transactions. This transfer pricing documentation…