IBFD provides feedback to the European Commission
Over the last few weeks, IBFD Academic members has been actively engaged in providing feedback to the European Commission within the framework of a public consultation concerning the "Unshell" Directive proposal ("Laying down rules to prevent the misuse of shell entities for tax purposes and amending Directive 2011/16/EU") released on 22 December 2021.
In the form of a position paper, the comments were prepared by the IBFD Task Force on EU Tax Law, formed by Pasquale Pistone, João Nogueira, Alessandro Turina and Ivan Lazarov. This constituted a follow-up to a highly impactful position paper submitted by the Task Force to the European Commission in June 2021 in connection with the public consultation "Tax avoidance – fighting the use of shell entities and arrangements for tax purposes" and which was published in International Tax Studies (7/2021).
The feedback from IBFD identifies several shortcomings in the current proposal and provides constructive criticism on possible paths that could be explored to align the rules with the underlying aims, highlighting the need to distinguish the addressing of shell entities from issues of corporate residency and transfer pricing. The feedback also alerts the Commission with regard to the multiplication of reporting requirements and suggests aggregating them in a single modular instrument that could be used – across the internal market – each time a taxpayer is required to report tax relevant data that are not directly related to a specific income tax return.
Read more on the European Commission's website.