Until recently, tax was thought of as a mere cost of business and minimizing that was one of a company's duties to its shareholders. Tax avoidance structures were considered legitimate to achieve that goal. At the same time, it was clear that tax laws must not be abused for that purpose – typically, meaning that tax structures need sufficient substance and business justification.

Times have changed. There is no longer a bright line between acceptable tax structures and non-acceptable ones. Structures can be considered abusive if the principle purpose is avoidance or the reduction of taxes. Substance in terms of premises and employees may no longer be enough. Over the past few years, a significant amount of legislation (both, at the EU and OECD level), has been introduced which impacts tax structuring (MLI, ATAD I and II to name a few). Additional OECD, EU and domestic initiatives are in the pipeline.

Against this background, how do you prove that a tax reduction was not your principle purpose? Even if a tax reduction is not the principle purpose, but only a side effect – can such a structure still be considered ethical and free from any reputational risk? If not, tax structuring is no longer white, but grey and this grey has many shades! On the other hand, what happens to a formally "abusive" structure when it falls within new safe harbor rules? Can this structure be considered white or do ethical or reputational considerations turn the structure grey again? How do these considerations influence tax controversy?

The answers to these questions will have material consequences for tax structuring in the future. We will discuss all these questions (and many more) at our Dentons Global Tax Conference 2022 on 6 October 2022 in Warsaw.

Programme

Thursday, 6 October 

In the meantime, you can get an impression of the last Global Tax Conference in 2021 by watching this video.

We hope you will join us - you can confirm your attendance already now by sending an email to taxconference@dentons.com.