Spring started with the announcement of a new Luxembourg IP regime. The regime, which will be BEPS-compliant, was announced by Prime Minister Xavier Bettel during his annual State of the Nation speech. This announcement had been much anticipated following the repeal of the former Luxembourg IP regime by the 2016 budget law. Even though draft legislation is not yet available, it is nevertheless possible to anticipate some of the key aspects of the new regime.

Additional changes to the Luxembourg legislation may come soon following two recent decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU): in the Berlioz case which dealt with Luxembourg rules on exchange of information upon request, the CJEU demonstrated that being too transparent may be problematic from an EU standpoint; in the other case, the CJEU decided that the Luxembourg VAT rules applicable to independent groups of persons were not in line with the EU VAT Directive.

We further examine the framework for the delegation or outsourcing of investment management services by Luxembourg AIFMs following the release of the recent ESMA opinion on the relocation of investment firms from the UK to other EU Member States.

At EU level, the proposal amending the Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive, "ATAD" has now been formally adopted and became a Directive (the so-called "ATAD 2 Directive"). We examine the changes introduced by this new Directive, which Luxembourg will have to implement by 2020 at the latest. Also at EU level, an agreement was reached on a new Directive aiming at improving dispute resolution mechanisms in the EU. We present and analyse the changes introduced.

At global level, one of the most significant disruptions in the history of international taxation happened on 7 June 2017 with the signature by 68 jurisdictions of the Multilateral Instrument (MLI) aiming to implement the tax treaty-related measures deriving from the OECD BEPS Project. The MLI is a comprehensive and flexible convention that allows countries to implement a wide range of tax treaty related BEPS measures with many options and alternatives. In this issue, we analyse the approach taken by Luxembourg in respect to the options and alternatives chosen.

Download >> ATOZ Insights - June 2017

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