Translation of "décision fiscale anticipée " (French → English) :

Finally, the Commission's decision that Belgium's "excess profit" ruling system was contrary to EU state aid rules was also based on derogations from the "arm's length principle". Profit allocation methods, which do not reflect economic reality: The Commission decided in August 2016 that Apple received illegal tax benefits in Ireland because the tax rulings endorsed a method to internally allocate profits within two Irish Apple group companies, which did not have any factual or economic justification. Inconsistent application of national law, giving rise to a discretionary double non-taxation: Today's investigation into Luxembourg's tax ...[+++]treatment of GDF Suez looks into an alleged inconsistent application of national tax law endorsed in the tax rulings, leading to double non-taxation.

86. Calls on the Member States to publish information on their tax rulings, presented in regional breakdowns, to ensure that there is not an excess of tax rulings in some regions, creating de facto State aid to them;

Z. whereas advanced tax rulings are not supposed to affect in any way the tax treatment of any transaction, nor benefit one taxpayer over another, but rather should have, everything being equal, the same effect as the ex post application of the underlying tax provisions; whereas, accordingly, the focus of this report is not strictly limited to tax rulings but includes, in line with the mandate given to its special committee (TAXE), any tax measure similar in nature or in effect, under the generic term of ‘harmful tax practices’, i.e. measures aimed at attracting non-resident firms or transactions at the expense of other tax jurisdictio ...[+++]ns in which these transactions should normally be taxed and/or measures aimed at privileging only some companies, thus distorting competition;

Z. whereas advanced tax rulings are not supposed to affect in any way the tax treatment of any transaction, nor benefit one taxpayer over another, but rather should have, everything being equal, the same effect as the ex post application of the underlying tax provisions; whereas, accordingly, the focus of this report is not strictly limited to tax rulings but includes, in line with the mandate given to its special committee (TAXE), any tax measure similar in nature or in effect, under the generic term of ‘harmful tax practices’, i.e. measures aimed at attracting non-resident firms or transactions at the expense of other tax jurisdiction ...[+++]s in which these transactions should normally be taxed and/or measures aimed at privileging only some companies, thus distorting competition;

As a result, Member States do not spontaneously exchange their tax rulings and are often unaware of cross-border tax rulings issued elsewhere in the EU which may impact their own tax bases.

Indeed, he considers that advance tax rulings and price arrangements may have a cross-border dimension even though they relate to purely national transactions, notably in the case of cascade transactions where the advance tax ruling or price arrangement concerns the first national transactions, without consideration of the next (cross-border) transactions.