News

On April 20, 2018 the Dutch State Secretary for Finance presented the government response to the evaluation of the 30% ruling to the House of Representatives.

On March 22, 2018, the OECD released the report ‘Additional Guidance on the Attribution of Profits to Permanent Establishments’. This report follows the final report on ‘Preventing the Artificial Avoidance of Permanent Establishments Status’, which was released earlier as part of action 7 of the BEPS project.

During a meeting of the ECOFIN in Brussels on 13 March 2018, a political agreement was reached on a proposal to strengthen tax transparency of supposedly aggressive cross-border tax planning by amending the Directive on Administrative Cooperation (“DAC”). 

On 23 February 2018, the Dutch State Secretary of Finance published a letter with his view on the policy towards the future of the Dutch tax landscape. He expressed his clear intention for the Netherlands to maintain its competitive investment climate, while on the other hand he wants to avoid that the attractive Dutch tax environment is used for abuse structures.

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.