Evaluation of the Earnings Stripping Rules

Member States had to have implemented the anti-earnings stripping rules by 1 January 2019. In this article these rules are evaluated from an economic and EU law perspective. The author concludes that the rules are probably not in breach of EU law because they are implemented without distinction between domestic and cross border situations. In addition there is little room to assess rules which are the result of (full) harmonization. Nevertheless some risks exist in particular with regard to the interaction between the group regimes and the earning stripping rules and the design of the standalone exception. An important drawback of the earnings stripping rules is the risk of double taxation. This could have been avoided by the EU legislator. Earnings stripping rules, EBITDA, interest, thin capitalization rules, manifest error, ATAD-Directive, Equity escape, BEPS, Minimum standard