Tax and the City review for April

UK CFC rules: Commission’s state aid decision

The European Commission has published a press release about its decision concluding that part of the UK’s CFC finance company partial exemption does constitute state aid. At the time of writing the full decision has not been published but the following can be understood from the press release. Exempting finance income which would otherwise be brought into charge as a result of it being derived from UK connected capital is not state aid. On the other hand exempting finance income which would otherwise be brought into charge as a result of it being derived from UK activity is state aid. Consequently the UK finance company regime from 1 January 2019 when the rules were tightened up to exempt only the former and...