Op 23 juni 2021 heeft de de staatssecretaris van Financiën de antwoorden op de vragen van het Kamerlid Snels (GroenLinks) van 12 mei 2021 over 'belastingontwijking door Pfizer' naar de Tweede Kamer gezonden. Daarbij heeft hij ook de opgevraagde ambtelijke notitie “Staatssteunaspecten CV/BV structuren” van 26 februari 2016 meegestuurd.

 

De aanleiding voor deze ambtelijke notitie is een artikel van Prof.mr.dr. J. Vleggeert. In dat artikel nam Prof. Vleggeert het standpunt in dat de CV/BV-structuur in de relatie Nederland-de Verenigde Staten van Amerika onrechtmatige staatssteun zou vormen.

On June 28, 2021 the European Commission published the 2021 edition of the Taxation Trends in the European Union, which is a yearly snapshot of tax systems in the EU, Iceland and Norway.

 

The report offers a breakdown of tax levels in the EU and provides extensive and comparable data on different tax structures and rates in Member States, as well as an estimation of the tax revenue for the coming years (2020-2022), taking into account the impact of COVID-19.

On June 24, 2021 the Japanese Ministry of Finance issued a press release announcing that on June 23, the exchange of diplomatic notes between the Government of Japan and the Government of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay for the entry into force of “Convention between Japan and the Oriental Republic of Uruguay for the Elimination of Double Taxation with respect to Taxes on Income and the Prevention of Tax Evasion and Avoidance” (signed on September 13, 2019) (hereafter: the DTA) took place in Montevideo.

Op 16 juni 2021 hebben de staatssecretarissen van Financiën de 3e voortgangsrapportage -Belastingdienst 2020 aan de Tweede Kamer gestuurd. Bij deze 3de voortgangsrapportage zijn 3 bijlagen bijgevoegd waarvan met name 2 bijlagen interessant zijn voor fiscalisten die werkzaam zijn in de internationale praktijk. Vooral de Bijlage: “Rulings met een internationaal karakter - Jaarverslag 2020” is een interessante. De andere interessante bijlage is de “Rapportage van een onafhankelijke onderzoekscommissie rulings met een internationaal karakter 2019”.

Over the last few years many suggestive reports have seen the light regarding aggressive IP planning. The main goal of most of these reports seems to be to feed the negative sentiment that the Netherlands is a tax haven for multinationals. These reports have been drafted by organizations as SOMO. They use terms like: “The Netherlands do not tax royalties”, “The Dutch APA and ATR practice allow multinationals to come to agreements with the Dutch tax authorities that are against the law” or “The Netherlands is a tax haven”, “Because of the Dutch APA and ATR practices other countries lose out on billions of (corporate) income taxes”.

 

In many of these reports it is suggested that the jurisdictions of which the sub-licensees are residents have lost out on huge amounts of taxes. The Netherlands is one of the jurisdictions that is often accused of being a tax haven that enables the (most US) IP-owners of robbing the jurisdictions of which the sub-licensees are residents out of the possibility to levy billions in taxes . (Obviously also Ireland and Luxembourg are jurisdictions that are regularly mentioned). What most of these reports furthermore have in common is that they love to throw around billions of royalties being paid by the sub-licensees.  Furthermore they love to pretend that the structures lead to gigantic amounts of deductible costs in the jurisdictions of which the sub-licensees are residents and that these costs would not exist in a ‘straightforward’ structure.

 

Now I am not going to pretend that I have read all these reports, but what I miss in these reports is a comparison between the taxes that would have been paid by a multinational in a straightforward structure and the taxes that they pay when using an aggressive tax planning structure.

On June 4, 2021 the European Commission opened a public consultation titled: “Tax avoidance – fighting the use of shell entities and arrangements for tax purposes”. Interested parties can give their input until August 27, 2021 (midnight Brussels time). The consultation is shaped in the form of a questionnaire via which interested parties can provide their input.

Most of the questions included in the questionnaire are so-called multiple choice questions and only a few times interested parties have the possibility to provide alternative input. Looking at the questionnaire I get the feeling that the European Commission has already chosen the direction it wants to go, which is mainly based on the colored way left-wing activists describe(d) shell entities (or letter-box entities as they prefer to call them).

On June 9, 2021 the key decisions of the European Commission’s June infringements package were published. With respect to Taxation and Customs Union the Commission decided to send reasoned opinions to Germany and Malta as well as an additional letter of formal notice to Sweden and letters of formal notice to Greece and Bulgaria.

Op 3 juni 2021 heeft de meervoudige belastingkamer van de Rechtbank Noord-Nederland een opvallende uitspraak gedaan in een zaak waarin de vraag centraal stond of en hoe groot het liquidatieverlies is dat een lichaam dat belastingplichtig is geworden voor de vennootschapsbelasting vanwege de Wet modernisering Vpb-plicht overheidsondernemingen mag nemen. Meer precies is de vraag eigenlijk op welke waarde de deelneming op de openingsbalans moet worden opgenomen. Is dat op historische kostprijs? Of op de waarde in het economisch verkeer?

In de onderhavige zaak besliste de Rechtbank dat belastingplichtige een liquidatieverlies in aanmerking mag nemen. Het in aanmerking te nemen liquidatieverlies bedraagt het verschil tussen de historische kostprijzen van de deelnemingen en de daaruit ontvangen liquidatie-uitkeringen.

Op 7 juni 2021 heeft De staatssecretaris van Financiën een informatie brief gestuurd aan de Tweede Kamer inzake de opzegging door de Russische Federatie van het Nederlands-Russische belastingverdrag. Middels deze brief informeert de staatssecretaris de Kamer over de gang van zaken en de gevolgen van dit besluit.

On June 1, 2021 the Dutch government published what it calls the synthesised text of 12 Double Taxation Agreements, which are impacted by the Multilateral Instrument (the MLI). In the published documents the concrete consequences of the MLI are presented in a legible manner in the continuous text of the treaty. The publication of these 12 documents is very handy, because the show which articles of the MLI impact which of these DTAs in which manner and it will save you from having to spend a lot of time to solve the puzzle yourself.

Submit to FacebookSubmit to TwitterSubmit to LinkedIn
INTERESTING ARTICLES