CIBA – Actions in Parliament Announcement – In relation to the Discussions on Legislation on Cross Border Tax Arrangements

The Cyprus International Businesses Association has been monitoring and been part of the developments concerning the DAC-6 regulation that needs to be adopted by the Republic of Cyprus.

The regulation which is an EU compulsory requirement needs to be implemented by the Republic and relates to the reporting of cross-border tax arrangements by intermediaries. As stated in the Council Directive under Why Report Cross-border Tax Arrangements:
“The main aim of the Directive is to provide tax authorities with an early warning mechanism on new risks of tax avoidance and thereby enable them to carry our audits more effectively. Prior to the Directive, such cross-border arrangements did not need be reported under EU legislation.” (https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/sites/taxation/files/dac-6-council-directive-2018_en.pdf ).

The Cyprus International Businesses Association with the support of L Papaphilippou & Co PLC – who brought forth the issue – have been actively involved in the Parliamentary process.

Our key objective in doing so is to ensure that all legal concerns relating to data privacy, type of information released, to whom they are released, and how they are treated thereafter are addressed within the proposed legislation. The Association is fully committed to raising its legal concerns in full adherence to both EU Primary Law and Cyprus Administrative Law always under the Principles of Transparency, Absence of Conflict of interests, and Proportionality.

Our interest and concern arise because wrongful implementation that contravenes the above legal frameworks and GDPR could pose significant legal risks for the Cyprus Republic.

We have specifically mentioned GDPR as legal decisions in the Court of Justice of the European Union which were issued on July 15th and July 16th have already had an impact (Data Protection Commissioner v. Facebook Ireland και Schrems) and (Judgment in Cases T-778/16, Ireland v Commission, and T-892/16, Apple Sales International and Apple Operations Europe v Commission).
Given these decisions, the Association has already put forth its questions the Ministry of Finance and to Parliament and highlighted the importance of these cases that need to be studied by the relevant Cyprus and European authorities. These Authorities need to answer specific questions to help the Parliament of Cyprus in preparing the legislative bill to the best degree possible.
The Cyprus International Businesses Association is fully committed to a positive and constructive role within the legislative process in supporting the interests of the International Businesses Sector in Cyprus.