Ensuring fair taxation in the internal market and the good functioning of the capital markets union (CMU) are among the key political priorities for the Union. In that context, removing obstacles to cross-border investment, while combating tax fraud and tax abuse is critical. Such obstacles exist, for example, in cases where inefficient and disproportionately burdensome procedures exist to relieve excess taxes withheld at source on dividend or interest income paid on shares or bonds traded publicly to non-resident investors. In addition, in some cases, the current situation has proven to be inadequate in preventing recurrent risks of tax fraud, tax evasion and tax avoidance, as shown by numerous cases of multiple tax reclaim schemes and fraud involving the use of dividend arbitrage or dividend stripping (Cum/Ex and Cum/Cum). Therefore, this Directive seeks to make withholding tax procedures more efficient, while strengthening them against the risk of tax fraud and tax abuse.
Text as published in the Official Journal, reproduced verbatim (including any typographical quirks of the source). For the authentic version, see EUR-Lex.
