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EU: UK asks EU Court to overturn Vestager’s anti-abuse tax rules

By  |  June 20, 2019

According to Bloomberg the UK is fighting an order by European Union antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager to claw back allegedly illegal tax breaks from multinationals, adding to the list of potential EU flashpoints ahead of Brexit.

Britain filed a challenge with the EU General Court on June 12, according to a filing on the tribunal’s website on Thursday.

Amid the UK’s stuttering efforts to find a way out of the EU, Vestager signed off on her decision ordering the nation to recoup unfair tax subsidies, after finding that multinationals had received a selective advantage through an unjustified exemption from British anti-tax avoidance rules.

“We are clear that all multinationals operating in the UK must pay their fair share of tax,” the Treasury said in an emailed statement. But “after carefully considering the commission’s decision, we have decided to lodge an annulment application against it. We do not believe the design of the controlled foreign company rules led to the provision of incompatible state aid.”

Full Content: Bloomberg

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