EU Tax Omnibus: simplifying direct tax rules

Accountancy Europe welcomes the European Commission’s proposed Tax Omnibus Directive as a major step towards simplifying EU direct tax legislation, reducing compliance burdens and strengthening the EU’s competitiveness as a place to invest and do business. The proposals address many long-standing concerns raised by businesses and tax advisers regarding complexity, administrative costs and the inconsistent application of tax rules across Member States.

Simplifying EU tax rules and reducing compliance costs

Accountancy Europe strongly supports key simplification measures, including reforms to the Parent-Subsidiary Directive, the Interest and Royalties Directive, and the Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive (ATAD). These changes would facilitate cross-border business operations, improve access to tax reliefs, simplify interest deduction rules and better align anti-avoidance measures with the realities of modern business structures. Accountancy Europe also supports accelerated tax depreciation for qualifying research and development assets.

Further improvements to EU direct tax legislation

At the same time, Accountancy Europe recommends further improvements to the proposals. These include a broader exclusion of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from ATAD anti-avoidance provisions, refinements to Controlled Foreign Company (CFC) rules, changes to the taxation of holding companies under the Parent-Subsidiary Directive, and greater taxpayer involvement in tax dispute resolution processes.

Accelerating tax reform to strengthen EU competitiveness

Overall, the Tax Omnibus package represents an important opportunity to simplify EU tax rules, lower compliance costs, improve legal certainty and support sustainable economic growth across the European Union.

Accountancy Europe urges Member States to preserve the ambition of the proposals and accelerate their implementation to deliver the competitiveness and administrative benefits of these reforms as soon as possible.

Read the full comment letter from Accountancy Europe to Mr. Gerassimos Thomas, Director General for Taxation and Customs Union at the European Commission →