Taxation: Commission published roadmap to extend the scope of the Directive on Administrative Cooperation to crypto-assets and e-money

The European Commission has today published an Inception Impact Assessment on the future revision of the Directive on Administrative Cooperation (DAC8). The revision aims to improve cooperation between national tax authorities, particularly in emerging areas such as crypto-assets. This initiative should provide tax administrations with information to identify taxpayers who are actively using new means of exchange, notably crypto-assets and e-money, in order to curb tax fraud and evasion. It will also ensure consistency with ongoing work at EU level, such as the Digital Finance Strategy adopted on 24 September 2020 and the proposal for a Regulation on Markets in Crypto-assets. This revision is part of the Action Plan for Fair and Simple Taxation Supporting the Recovery that the Commission presented in July this year. Since its adoption the original Directive 2011/16/EU has been amended seven times, to include information on financial accounts, on tax rulings and advance pricing agreements, on country by country reports, on beneficial ownership, on reportable cross border arrangements, on digital platforms and on crypto-assets and e-money being the last one. Stakeholders are invited to provide input by the 21 December deadline. More information is available here.