Brussels, 29 January 2018 1.EU removes eight countries from the tax ‘blacklist’ The Council of the European Union has removed eight jurisdictions from the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes at the ECOFIN Council meeting of 23 January. Following commitments made at high political level to remedy the EU concerns, the EU finance […]

Brussels, 22 January 2018 1.EU Commission publishes new VAT proposals concerning VAT rates On 18 January the European Commission issued two sets of proposals, one seeking to reform VAT rates and the other to lessen the administrative burden for small enterprises. The proposals are part of the ongoing work being carried out under the 2016 […]

Brussels, 15 January 2018 1. GTACF responds to OECD consultation on mandatory disclosure rules for CRS avoidance On behalf of the Global Tax Advisers’ Cooperation Forum (GTACF), the CFE has published an Opinion Statement in response to the OECD consultation draft regarding new tax rules requiring disclosure of Common Reporting Standard (“CRS”) avoidance arrangements and offshore […]

Brussels, 08 January 2018 1.CFE Launches Global Tax Top 5 in conjunction with AOTCA & WAUTI As part of the ongoing collaboration designed to continue fostering policy cooperation between CFE, Asia-Oceania Tax Consultants Association and West African Union of Tax Institutes a new monthly publication has launched which will deliver updates to Members on international […]

Brussels,  18 December 2017 1. EU agreement reached on the 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive The Council of EU and the European Parliament reached a political agreement on 15 December on the EU Commission’s proposal to amend the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive. The amended directive (‘5th AMLD’) seeks to prevent large scale concealment of funds and […]

Brussels,  11 December 2017 1.EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions adopted by EU finance ministers The Council of the EU sitting as ECOFIN (Economic and Financial Affairs Council) has approved Commission’s list of non-cooperative jurisdiction for tax purposes. The list includes 17 countries that are failing to meet European tax good governance standards: American Samoa, Bahrain, […]

Brussels, 4 December 2017 1.European Commission publishes new rules to improve the VAT System by making it more resilient to fraud and closing loopholes which create VAT fraud. On 30 November, the European Commission published a draft Regulation to strengthen administrative cooperation between the tax authorities of Member States. It seeks to amend Regulation (904/2010) […]

Brussels, 27 November 2017  1.OECD approves the 2017 update to the Model Tax Convention On 21 November 2017, the OECD Council approved the contents of the 2017 Update to the OECD Model Tax Convention. The 2017 OECD Model Tax Convention (“MTC”) updated incorporates changes to the MTC arising from the BEPS project. The approved changes concern amendments to the […]