The DAC7 Proposal and Reporting Obligation for Online Platforms

On 15 July 2020, the EU Commission published a proposal for a directive amending, for the sixth time, Directive 2011/16/EU on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation. The DAC7 Proposal extends EU tax transparency rules to digital platforms. It is proposed that EU Member States will automatically exchange information on income generated by sellers on digital platforms. The authors discuss the content of the DAC7 proposal and try to assess whether it is necessary and proportionate. With respect to proportionality, the authors look in particular at the administrative costs and privacy aspects of the proposal but also consider the consequences for a level playing field for companies. Throughout the article, the authors examine whether the proposal is sufficiently clear. DAC7, online, platforms, e-commerce, automatic information exchange, EU legislation, Platform Operators, Reportable Seller, GDPR, level playing field, digitalization