Tag: Information on tax planning arrangements

EU Transparency on Income Allocation and Tax Arrangements – DAC 1 to 6

Tax authorities in the EU have agreed to cooperate more closely and exchange information so as to be able to apply their taxes correctly and combat tax fraud and tax evasion. Exchange of Information within the EU is based on Council Directive 2011/16/EU. The Directive and the later amendments in DAC 2 – 6 provides for exchange of information in three forms: spontaneous, automatic and on request. Spontaneous exchange of information takes place if a country discovers information on possible tax evasion relevant to another country, which is either the country of the income source or the country of residence. Exchange of information on request is used when additional information for tax purposes is needed from another country. Automatic exchange of information (AEOI) is activated in a cross-border situation, where a taxpayer is active in another country than the country of residence. In such cases tax administrations provide automatically tax information to the residence country of the taxpayer, in electronic form on a periodic basis. The Directive provides for mandatory exchange of five categories of income and assets: employment income, pension income, directors fees, income and ownership of immovable property and life insurance products. The scope has later been extended to financial account information, cross-border tax rulings and advance pricing arrangements, country by country reporting and tax planning schemes. These amendments which extend the application of the original Directive are loosely based on the common global standards agreed by tax administrations at international level, notably at the OECD. However, they sometimes go further and importantly they are legislative rather than being based on political agreement without legislative force. The table below shows the main content of the  Directives (DAC 1-6) and when exchanges started or will start to take place. An unofficial consolidated version of the original Directive and the five amendments (DAC 1-6) DAC 1 to 6 ...