EU Members States legislation harmonization relating to controlled foreign companies in the area of anti-tax avoidance

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the general aspects and peculiarities of the EU Member States legislation harmonization aimed at preventing avoidance of taxation by multinational companies through foreign entities or permanent establishments controlled by parent companies themselves or together with their associated enterprises. On the reasonable basis, the special emphasis was placed on the act of secondary legislation playing the key role in this important area, namely, Council Directive (EU) 2016/1164 of 12 July 2016 laying down rules against tax avoidance practices that directly affect the functioning of the internal market with regard to the controlled foreign companies rules. This Directive came into force on 1January 2019 and became an integral part of EU Anti-Tax Avoidance Package. Harmonization at the regional European level is being provided and, consequently, in-depth researched in the context of OECD/G-20 global Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting. From methodological point of view, OECD Final Report on Action 3 BEPS was accepted as the analytical prism allowed the quintessence of constitutive rules of above mentioned EU Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive to be discovered properly. Accordingly, the comparative analysis was conducted through the lens of provisions of vast majority of aforesaid Final Report’s building blocks, more specifically, Rules for defining a CFC, Definition of CFC Income, Rules for computing income as well as CFC exemptions and threshold requirements, in particular, relating tax rate exemption, anti-avoidance requirement, de minimis threshold. Focusing attention on different important aspect related to CFC Income, it’s discovered special considerations of non-distributed income inclusion in the Member State taxpayer’s tax base of certain categories of passive income (interest, royalties, dividends, income from financial leasing, banking, invoicing companies, etc.) or arising from non-genuine arrangements with correlation, respectively, to entity and transaction approaches. Without limiting the foregoing, it’s discovered some argumentative issues considering European researchers as weaknesses of ATAD. It’s offered an illustration cause and effect relationship between non-recognition of passive income to be attributed to controlling parties and CFC’s substantive economic activity as far as there is reason to believe that it refuses to honor case law of the Court of Justice. Key words: controlled foreign company, passive income, substantive economic activity, non-genuine arrangement.