See especially:
https://www.taxjustice.net/
On 28 January 2016 the Commission presented its proposal for an Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive as part of the Anti-Tax Avoidance Package. On 20 June 2016 the Council adopted the Directive (EU) 2016/1164 laying down rules against tax avoidance practices that directly affect the functioning of the internal market.
In order to provide for a comprehensive framework of anti-abuse measures the Commission presented its proposal on 25th October 2016, to complement the existing rule on hybrid mismatches. The rule on hybrid mismatches aims to prevent companies from exploiting national mismatches to avoid taxation.
In addition to the proposal the Commission also published its Staff Working Document.
The Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive contains five legally-binding anti-abuse measures, which all Member States should apply against common forms of aggressive tax planning.
Member States should apply these measures as from 1 January 2019.
https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/company-tax/anti-tax-avoidance-package/anti-tax-avoidance-directive_enAs from the start of 2019, yes coincidentally just as the Brexit deadline looms, all EU member states will have to apply the Anti Tax Avoidance Directive (ATAD). It’s an EU law designed to tackle businesses shirking their tax-paying responsibilities.
The likes of Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg and a host of wealthy Brexit donors are unlikely to warm to ATAD. It fact, it might be one of reasons why some Brexiteers are hell-bent on pushing for the hardest Brexit possible.
How will ATAD work?
The directive seeks to tackle the thriving culture of corporate tax avoidance. For example, consider the scenario in which an EU company shifts profits to a related company in a low-tax country reducing the tax paid on these profits: under ATAD, a company could still do this, but the profits will be taxable at EU rates.
Another situation is where EU businesses developing a new product move it to a low tax country to avoid paying larger taxes on the profits once it is developed. Thanks to ATAD this tactic won’t work as member states can levy tax on the product before it is moved.
Even with ATAD, you might argue companies – through their nifty lawyers – will find new loopholes to avoid tax, right? The EU thought of that: ATAD provides a general anti-abuse rule to counteract these regimes where national laws have failed to address them.
There are many other measures in ATAD which you will no doubt be inspired to research. But before you do that, you will hear people air grievances that this Directive is another example of how the EU hates business or that it is another instance of Brussels encroaching on our sovereignty...
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/is-the-anti-tax-avoidance-directive-the-reason-the-rich-want-out-of-eu-1-5669763... Similar accusations have been leveled at David Cameron and his true motivations behind calling the referendum, that the Conservatives were vehemently opposed to Tax Evasion regulations that were being proposed by the EU.
Back in 2015, Britain rejected plans announced by Brussels to combat “industrial-scale tax avoidance by the world’s biggest multinationals”. Britain had built a corporate tax haven for multinationals that included slashing corporation tax from 28% to 20%, new favorable tax regimes for multinationals with offshore financing subsidiaries, and tax breaks for patent-owning companies. As a result, Britain saw a number of large corporations like Aon, Fiat Industrial, and Starbucks’s European operations, set up headquarters in the UK with a small number of staff in order to take advantage of these tax laws.
The common tax regulations would have clamped down on offshoring and removed many of these elements of Britain’s competitive tax advantages over other EU Member States...
https://medium.com/the-jist/was-eu-tax-evasion-regulation-the-reason-for-the-brexit-referendum-980ba88a8077
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