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Stijn Blaakman, Jasper Korving
Intertax
Volume 52, Issue 5 (2024) pp. 361 – 386
https://doi.org/10.54648/taxi2024038
Abstract
On 12 September 2023, the European Commission published the directive proposal ‘Business in Europe: Framework for Income Taxation’ (hereinafter ‘BEFIT Proposal’). The BEFIT Proposal should harmonize the corporate income tax bases for companies within the EU. For the calculation of the tax base, the financial accounts are taken as the starting point. Subsequently, several upward and downward adjustments are made. This methodology is close to the calculation method as accepted by the Pillar Two Directive. In this contribution, the authors will compare the calculation methods in both directives, examine the consistencies and differences between them and make suggestions for improvement. Besides that, the authors will verify whether the application of BEFIT could still result in the application of a top up tax under the Pillar Two Directive and will make suggestions to avoid potential additional levies.
Keywords
EU, harmonization, Pillar Two, OECD, BEFIT, tax base, corporate income tax, allocation, formula apportionment, CCCTB
Extract
Abuse of dominance cases under Article 102 TFEUconcerning online platforms will require revisiting the process of the market definition in light of the complexities that are likely to arise due to the two- or multi-sided nature of such platforms. This distinctive nature will firstly require determining the number of relevant markets that need to be defined in each case before the scope of such markets can be accurately delineated. Unfortunately, however, the current approaches to this first, new step, of the market definition process are incompatible with business reality. Therefore this article provides an alternative approach to this complexity, which is better suited to guarantee the trueness of the market definition findings. Accordingly, this article indicates that the number of relevant markets in each case should be determined based on the typology of the interactions facilitated by the online platform and the degree of substitutability of such online platform with other non-platform undertakings from the perspective of its customers groups. This approach allows reaching findings of market power in a manner that adequately reflects the business reality of such platforms in the digital economy and the degree of competitive pressure they may experience in practice.
World Competition