Insights

DAC8 enters into force on 13 November 2023 and for the most part will come into effect for all EU Member States from 1 January 2026. Read the key measures introduced to enhance tax compliance and improve transparency.

On 17 October 2023, the Council of the EU adopted DAC8, the 7th amendment to the Directive on Administrative Cooperation (“DAC”) directive amending EU rules on administrative cooperation in the area of taxation. The Directive will enter into force on 13 November 2023, and Member States will have until 31 December 2025 to transpose the Directive into national law, after which the provisions would come into effect as of 1 January 2026.

The European Commission (EC) has adopted key initiatives, which aim to reduce compliance costs for large businesses operating across the European Union. The BEFIT proposal introduces a single set of rules to determine the tax base for large businesses that operate out of more than one Member State.

Throughout 2023, the OECD Inclusive Framework has continued its work on the development of the Pillar Two Global anti-Base Erosion Rules in advance of the introduction of the rules on 31 December 2023.

The introduction of Pillar Two brings unprecedented changes to the international tax landscape, the likes of which haven’t been seen for decades. The rules will create a fundamental shift in the way certain groups are taxed as well as an additional global compliance and reporting obligation for those within scope of the rules.

Over the past few weeks, the Irish Revenue Commissioners (‘Revenue’) has sent in excess of 20,000 letters to non-resident landlords (‘NRL’) and their collection agents, informing them of the upcoming changes to the administration of withholding tax for NRLs. In these letters, Revenue has also detailed the information that landlords will be required to provide to their tenants or collection agents.

On 22nd March 2021, the EU Council introduced "DAC7”, or the 7th Directive (2011/16/EU), on Administrative Cooperation, which enables EU Member States to address some of the perceived negative aspects of the digital economy, by extending the scope of existing exchange of information provisions between Member States, and thus ensuring greater transparency on cross border transactions.

The Forum on Tax Administration, a member group of the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting), along with other OECD task forces, published a guide to Multilateral Mutual Agreement Procedures multilateral (MAPs) and Advance Pricing Arrangements (APAs). This guide is abbreviated as the ‘MoMA’.

The European Parliament has published its approval of the European Commission’s draft proposal for Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive III (ATAD III) with recommended amendments.

The European Commission held a public consultation in respect of a new proposed corporate tax system referred to as Business in Europe: Framework for Income Taxation (“BEFIT”). According to the Commission, the initiative aims to introduce a single corporate tax rulebook for the EU, based on a common tax base and allocation of taxable profits to Member States based on a pre-defined formula. Once allocated, the taxable profits would be subject to the corporate income tax rates of the relevant Member States.

The European Commission recently issued a proposal to amend the Directive on Administrative Cooperation (DAC) in the form of DAC8. The proposal extends the reporting obligations under the Directive to cover income or revenue streams generated from crypto-assets.

The Irish Revenue (“Revenue”) published updates to their tax and duty manual (“TDM”) containing guidelines for correlative adjustment (“CA”) claims under Ireland’s double tax treaty network. Read summary of the Revenue guidelines.