Your challenges, our knowledge

In its ruling of 11 March, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decided that services rendered by the Danish head office of the Danske Bank to its Swedish branch attract VAT. This was based on the fact that the Danish head office had joined a Danish VAT group. As a result of this decision intercompany cross-border services are inside the scope of VAT, if either the head office or the branch are a member of a VAT group. This may result in VAT leakage. We will discuss this ruling and its impact in practice.

The new edition of the EU Tax Alert is available. With this publication we would like to keep you informed of the latest developments on EU tax law.

As a major European financial centre, Luxembourg maintains a certain degree of flexibility in its legal system to cope with an ever-increasing volume of inward investment. Discover our comprehensive overview.

The Luxembourg Green Exchange has recently added to its labelled bond section, a brand-new section dedicated to Climate-Aligned Issuers, built on the Climate Bonds Initiative’s issuer screening and research. This new segment will give visibility to environmentally friendly issuers of debt securities that are not necessarily labelled as green, social or sustainability bonds, but which finance low-carbon activities with a positive environmental impact.

The CSSF has built a new digital portal (e-Prospectus) where issuers will, as of 1 March 2021, be able to submit and follow their application requests under the Prospectus Regulation and the Luxembourg Prospectus Law. Access to the e-Prospectus platform will require the possession of a LuxTrust certificate.

On 22 February 2021, the European Union list of “non-cooperative jurisdictions” (the EU List) has been updated by the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN). This update is important in Luxembourg following the recent adoption of a law (law of 10 February 2021), which disallows the deduction for income tax purposes of interest and royalties due to related companies established in a country included in the EU List. This denial of the deduction is a new measure and applies as from 1 March 2021. The deduction will not be denied where the taxpayer is able to proof that the interest or royalties have been incurred in the context of transactions that were entered into for valid bona fide commercial reasons which reflect economic reality.

The Court of appeal's decision brings a final answer to the debate. While the Luxembourg courts have clarified on numerous occasions the modalities surrounding the 1958 New York Convention, case law relating to the 1965 Washington Convention remained scarce.

Loyens & Loeff, 18 February 2021 – Loyens & Loeff reaffirms its top ranking position as a leading business law firm in the Chambers Global 2021 rankings*.

Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) are already subject to anti-money laundering / terrorist financing (ML/TF) obligations. In December 2020, the Luxembourg Ministry of Justice released its ML/TF risk assessment with respect to VASPs, which provides interesting insights on the inherent risk of different virtual assets and VASPs as well as the exposure of the traditional financial sector to VASP ML/TF risks. The report also sets out what is expected of VASPs in order to mitigate these risks.

From the regulatory and tax environment to the fund formation, get a comprehensive overview of the Luxembourg investment funds market.

Are you looking to invest in real estate in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg or Switzerland? Our ‘Key tax aspects of real estate investments 2021’ publication gives you an overview of all the relevant tax aspects that should be taken into account when structuring real estate investments in our home markets.

In the course of 2020 there were several developments in EU tax law. This annual edition of EU Tax Alert provides an overview of those developments on both direct and indirect taxation.