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Executive summary

Although most countries intend to retain the 31 January 2024 reporting deadline under DAC7, Germany and Luxembourg announced transition rules and postponed deadlines, as highlighted in this Tax Alert.

Detailed discussion

Transitional rules in Germany and Luxembourg

On 22 March 2021, the Council of the European Union adopted new rules revising the Directive on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation (Council Directive 2011/16/EU or DAC) to extend the European Union (EU) tax transparency rules, introducing a reporting obligation for digital platforms located both inside and outside the EU (DAC7).¹ These rules have been in force since 1 January 2023, and the first report (for the 2023 reporting period) must be submitted by 31 January 2024. Further, the disclosed information will be exchanged automatically between the Member States within two months after the end of the year for which information was filed.

On 5 January 2024, the German Federal Tax Office ("Bundeszentralamt für Steuern") announced transitional rules for the reporting obligations under DAC7 for the 2023 reporting period, extending the original deadline to 31 March 2024.² Therefore, the Federal Tax Office will not object if reporting platform operators fulfill their reporting and documentation obligations (as stipulated in the German implementation law) no later than 1 April 2024.

The Luxembourg tax authorities ("Administration des contributions directes") have issued a communication³ for platform operators, informing that the pre-validation procedure and the assistant that enables Platform Operators to report the information concerning Reportable Sellers according to the DAC7 law are available as of 19 January 2024.

Further, Luxembourg announced that the deadline for filing the first report will be postponed to 19 February 2024 instead of 31 January 2024. As previously announced, the platform operators have a period of one month to submit their declarations from the date of official availability of the aforementioned procedures.

Latest country developments with regard to DAC7

• Bulgaria: The official deadline for submitting DAC7 reports for 2023 remains on 31 January 2024 (no extension is expected). Moreover, the Bulgarian tax authorities have already provided instructions regarding the reporting procedure and the official reporting scheme.
• Lithuania: The official deadline for submitting DAC7 reports for 2023 remains on 31 January 2024. However, the Lithuanian tax authorities have indicated that potential challenges associated with the data preparation time required by platform operators will be considered when assessing cases of late submissions (decision on a case-by-case basis by reviewing any objective reasons that might have prevented the timely preparation and submission of DAC7 reports).
• Netherlands: The Dutch tax authorities ("Belastingdienst") recently published their latest DAC7 FAQs.⁴The Belastingdienst mainly addresses practical aspects of the DAC7 reporting obligations for digital platforms in the Netherlands. In this regard, the FAQs reflect, inter alia, the Belastingdienst's intention to stich with the original reporting deadline of 31 January 2024 for the 2023 DAC7 Reportable Period.
• Poland: The date of implementation of the DAC7 regulations in Poland is still not known.
• Portugal: The official deadline for submitting DAC7 reports for 2023 remains on 31 January 2024 (no extension is expected). It is now possible for reporting platform operators to officially register on the Portuguese tax authorities' website and submit the respective reporting files.
• Romania: The official deadline for submitting DAC7 reports for 2023 remains on 31 January 2024. A draft version of the official template of the reporting form (F7000) is now available.
• Spain: The full legislative packet has not yet been passed and the final documents of the specific tax scheme have not yet been published. The Spanish tax authorities are expecting to have them passed before the end of January and thus, the official deadline for submitting DAC7 reports for 2023 remains on 31 January 2024. It is however further expected that some opinion about keeping or postponing the deadline from the State Council ("Consejo de Estado") will be published.

Next steps

The announcement of the transition rules will likely be generally welcomed by German and Luxembourg platforms. Nonetheless, these transition rules also result in certain legal uncertainties, in particular with respect to the coordination between the Member States and their interpretation of these rules. In any case, the transition period should be used to ensure a full and correct reporting to avoid noncompliance and potential penalties.

Digital platforms operating in countries that retained the original reporting deadline must submit the first report by 31 January 2024.