On July 3, 2018 the OECD released the highly anticipated discussion draft on financial transactions, which deals with the follow-up work in relation to Actions 8-10 of the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project. Public comments are invited on the discussion draft and should be submitted by September 7, 2018.

Due to the introduction of the mandatory transfer pricing documentation in Belgium in 2016, the filing date for the local file form (form 275 LF) for a large amount of Belgian entities that form part of a multinational group is approaching for the second time.

On July 3, 2018, under the mandate of the Report on Actions 8-10 of the BEPS Action Plan, the OECD issued its highly anticipated public discussion draft on financial transactions. Interest parties are invited to provide their comments, and responses to specific questions raised, by September 7, 2018.

On May 11, the Dutch State Secretary of Finance published a new Dutch transfer pricing Decree that replaces the Decree from November 14, 2013. The new Decree aims to address the recent changes to the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines, which were adjusted as a result of the BEPS-project.

Luxembourg new tax regime designed to increase intellectual property (“IP”) developments has entered into force in April 2018 and is effective as of 1 January 2018. The new regime (the “IP Law”) follows after the Luxembourg government abolished its former IP regime as from 30 June 2016 (subject to grandfathering rules in effect until no later than 30 June 2021).

On March 22, 2018, the OECD released the report ‘Additional Guidance on the Attribution of Profits to Permanent Establishments’. This report follows the final report on ‘Preventing the Artificial Avoidance of Permanent Establishments Status’, which was released earlier as part of action point 7 of the BEPS project.

Following the adoption of the fourth EU anti-money laundering directive (2015/849/EC, the “Directive”) which aim is to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing by means of, inter alia, introducing central registers identifying the ultimate beneficial owner(s) (“UBOs”) for certain Luxembourg entities, two draft bills of law were introduced on 6 December 2017 and presented to the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies. Both bills are presently undergoing their parliamentary journey, expected to be implemented in the course of 2018.

The WTS newsletter summarizes new developments in the field of TP for 10 countries and has been prepared by local TP experts within the global WTS-network.

The Belgian tax authorities have granted an extension on the administrative deadline until 31 March 2018 regarding the filing of the Master file (275 MF), the Country-by-Country report (275 CBC) and Country-by-Country notification for 2018 (275 CBC NOT).

According to Dutch transfer pricing legislation (article 8b of the Dutch Corporate Income Tax Act), Dutch tax payers need to have documentation available that demonstrates the arm’s-length nature of transfer prices applied to intra-group transactions. This transfer pricing documentation should be part of a taxpayers’ administration.