One minute with Alex Tostevin, tax partner at Dentons.
What’s keeping you busy at work?
Fortunately, my practice is relatively broad, which has been helpful over the last six months because as certain areas have become quieter, others have picked up and kept us busy. Currently, I’m advising several clients that are moving their global operations into the UK, and I am also advising in the M&A space.
If you could make one change to a tax law, what would it be?
Tax law can be a minefield with all the various pieces of anti-avoidance legislation. Consequently, and I accept this may be rather ambitious, I would like to see the raft of anti-avoidance legislation repealed and replaced with a VAT-style abuse of rights test.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known at the start of your career?
I always tell our new joiners, who can be overwhelmed with all the tax legislation, that tax is like a bottomless pit. It helps to embrace the situation, enjoy the challenge and take a base jumping parachute so you can control the descent!
Are there any new rules that are causing a particular problem?
The new EU mandatory disclosure rules (‘DAC 6’ or ‘DOTAS on steroids’) are my biggest headache. As Dentons is a global firm, rolling out these rules internally is no mean feat, from building the internal risk management control system through to developing the training programme for all our employees. The lack of consistency over the interpretation of these rules across the EU doesn’t help.
Has a recent case has caught your eye?
The latest CJEU salvo in United Biscuits (Pension Trustees) Ltd and another v HMRC (Case C–235/19) certainly has. The case concerns the long running saga of the availability of the management of special investment funds VAT exemption for the management of ‘pension’ funds.
I often disagree with HMRC’s interpretation of (and approach to) this exemption, but this is one case where I always thought that the fact pattern was a bit speculative and it unhelpfully (but not unpredictably) resulted in HMRC withdrawing the exemption for insurers back in 2017 (Revenue & Customs Brief 3/2017).
Even after the end of the Brexit transitional period, EU VAT law will remain at least persuasive on the interpretation of the UK VAT exemptions, so these cases are definitely worth watching. It will be interesting to see how HMRC and the HM Treasury develop this exemption going forward in light of the end of the transitional period: will the UK maintain the status quo, widen the exemption or narrow it?
What should we look out for later this year?
In a similar vein, this same exemption is hotly contested throughout the EU, so at least the UK is in good company.
I will be eagerly keeping an eye on the Netherlands, where earlier this year the Dutch tax authority withdrew the availability of this exemption for the management of ‘CLO’ vehicles. This change of position has already resulted in businesses choosing other EU jurisdictions for their investment platforms and we are also seeing others migrate business out of the Netherlands.
What is particularly interesting about this exemption is the influence that it has on the decisions of business as regards where they decide to site their operations.
Consequently, how this exemption develops (and whether the European Commission will finally seek to eradicate the arbitrage between member states in this area) has the potential to drive investment platforms back to the UK.
Linked to this, I am also eagerly awaiting the UK government’s response to the consultation of the tax treatment of asset holding companies in alternative fund structures, because this also has the possibility of benefiting the UK depending on how the government chooses to proceed.
You might not know this about me…
In what little spare time I have, I am an avid brewer of beer, and I am in the process of building a fully automated (home) brewery.
One minute with Alex Tostevin, tax partner at Dentons.
What’s keeping you busy at work?
Fortunately, my practice is relatively broad, which has been helpful over the last six months because as certain areas have become quieter, others have picked up and kept us busy. Currently, I’m advising several clients that are moving their global operations into the UK, and I am also advising in the M&A space.
If you could make one change to a tax law, what would it be?
Tax law can be a minefield with all the various pieces of anti-avoidance legislation. Consequently, and I accept this may be rather ambitious, I would like to see the raft of anti-avoidance legislation repealed and replaced with a VAT-style abuse of rights test.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known at the start of your career?
I always tell our new joiners, who can be overwhelmed with all the tax legislation, that tax is like a bottomless pit. It helps to embrace the situation, enjoy the challenge and take a base jumping parachute so you can control the descent!
Are there any new rules that are causing a particular problem?
The new EU mandatory disclosure rules (‘DAC 6’ or ‘DOTAS on steroids’) are my biggest headache. As Dentons is a global firm, rolling out these rules internally is no mean feat, from building the internal risk management control system through to developing the training programme for all our employees. The lack of consistency over the interpretation of these rules across the EU doesn’t help.
Has a recent case has caught your eye?
The latest CJEU salvo in United Biscuits (Pension Trustees) Ltd and another v HMRC (Case C–235/19) certainly has. The case concerns the long running saga of the availability of the management of special investment funds VAT exemption for the management of ‘pension’ funds.
I often disagree with HMRC’s interpretation of (and approach to) this exemption, but this is one case where I always thought that the fact pattern was a bit speculative and it unhelpfully (but not unpredictably) resulted in HMRC withdrawing the exemption for insurers back in 2017 (Revenue & Customs Brief 3/2017).
Even after the end of the Brexit transitional period, EU VAT law will remain at least persuasive on the interpretation of the UK VAT exemptions, so these cases are definitely worth watching. It will be interesting to see how HMRC and the HM Treasury develop this exemption going forward in light of the end of the transitional period: will the UK maintain the status quo, widen the exemption or narrow it?
What should we look out for later this year?
In a similar vein, this same exemption is hotly contested throughout the EU, so at least the UK is in good company.
I will be eagerly keeping an eye on the Netherlands, where earlier this year the Dutch tax authority withdrew the availability of this exemption for the management of ‘CLO’ vehicles. This change of position has already resulted in businesses choosing other EU jurisdictions for their investment platforms and we are also seeing others migrate business out of the Netherlands.
What is particularly interesting about this exemption is the influence that it has on the decisions of business as regards where they decide to site their operations.
Consequently, how this exemption develops (and whether the European Commission will finally seek to eradicate the arbitrage between member states in this area) has the potential to drive investment platforms back to the UK.
Linked to this, I am also eagerly awaiting the UK government’s response to the consultation of the tax treatment of asset holding companies in alternative fund structures, because this also has the possibility of benefiting the UK depending on how the government chooses to proceed.
You might not know this about me…
In what little spare time I have, I am an avid brewer of beer, and I am in the process of building a fully automated (home) brewery.
