Business Tax Briefing

European Commission consulting on template and formats for EU public CbC reports

The European Commission has released a draft implementing regulation and annex to specify the format of public country-by-country (CbC) reports under the EU’s directive on public CbC  reporting. The Commission has produced a draft common template and machine-readable electronic format for use by businesses reporting under the directive and is now inviting feedback. The consultation is open until 29 August 2024.

The public CbC directive requires multinationals with worldwide annual revenues of more than EUR 750 million to disclose publicly, on a country-by-country basis, corporate income tax information relating to their operations in each of the 27 Member States, as well as information for third countries on the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions. Data relating to operations in other non-EU countries would be combined in one aggregated ‘rest of world’ line. Both large EU-parented groups, and large non-EU parented groups with large or medium-sized EU subsidiaries or branches, will have reporting obligations, and the reporting will generally take place within 12 months from the balance sheet date. Member states are required to implement their public CbC rules with effect for financial years commencing on or after 22 June 2024 at the latest, although some member states have implemented rules with earlier effect including Romania (for financial years from 1 January 2023), Croatia (1 January 2024) and Sweden (31 May 2024).

Consultation launched on First-tier Tribunal procedures on issuance of written decisions

The Tribunal Procedure Committee (the body that makes rules governing the practices and procedures of the UK’s tribunal system) has launched a new consultation inviting views on possible changes to the procedural rules of the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) relating to the provision of written reasons for decisions. Possible changes affecting the FTT’s Tax Chamber include: increasing the discretion of the FTT to issue only a short (i.e. unreasoned) written decision where an oral decision has already been given to parties; reducing the deadline, from 28 days to 14 days after the receipt of a short or summary decision, for a party to apply to the FTT for a full written decision setting out its detailed findings and reasons; and limiting the automatic requirement for the FTT to produce such a full written decision on request to only applications made by unsuccessful parties – applications from successful parties would only be granted if the FTT considers that it is in the interests of justice to do so. The Committee’s consultation on the proposed amended rules is open until 22 October 2024.

CJEU – transfer of indirect tax case ruling jurisdiction from Court of Justice to General Court  

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is divided into two courts: the Court of Justice, which inter alia currently deals with requests for preliminary rulings from national courts, and the General Court, which in practice deals mainly with competition law, State aid, trade, agriculture, and trade marks. However, citing the need to reduce the workload of the Court of Justice, in March 2024 the Council of the European Union announced its approval to transfer to the General Court jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings where these relate to a number of specific areas. These include: the common system of VAT, excise duties, the customs code, tariff classification, and greenhouse gas emission allowance trading. The Court of Justice will retain jurisdiction to adjudicate over such requests if they also raise independent questions of interpretation of primary law, public international law, general principles of Union law, or the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The CJEU issued a press release on 12 August 2024 covering the publication of the final regulation, and noting that the changes in jurisdiction will apply to referrals for a preliminary ruling received from 1 October 2024.

EMEA Dbriefs webcasts

The next EMEA Dbriefs tax webcast is on Wednesday 11 September 2024 at 12.00 BST/13.00 CEST. In UK Tax Update – September, hosted by Rachel Austin, our panel will discuss topical tax developments of relevance to UK businesses in relation to corporate taxes, employment taxes and indirect taxes.

Deloitte’s Business Tax Briefing is taking a brief break for the next two weeks, returning on 6 September 2024.