Pillar Two: Breaking News! EU Pillar Two Directive is coming

On 6 December, the adoption of the so-called Pillar Two Directive on the implementation of the global 15% minimum tax for large companies failed at the EU Finance Ministers' meeting due to Hungary's veto.

Overnight from 12-13 December, a political agreement was reached. EU member states voted unanimously to adopt the Pillar Two Directive. Formally, the adoption will take place through a written circulation procedure and EU member states will be required to transpose the Directive into national law by the end of 2023. The EU will thus become the spearhead internationally in implementing the OECD Model Rules on global 15% minimum taxation.

The German Federal Ministry of Finance has been working at full speed on the German implementation law for months and intends to publish an initial draft for discussion in spring 2023.

Until then, further comments from the OECD are to be expected, including on the so-called safe harbors, i.e. (temporary) relief in the (first) application of the OECD rules, which the EU and also Germany will refer to with particular excitement in practice.

Many of our clients have already analyzed how they intend to implement Pillar Two requirements within their company. Companies with group sales of EUR 750 million or more that have not yet dealt with the topic in detail should familiarize themselves with the new rules very promptly. The global minimum tax not only breaks new ground in terms of methodology but also requires a large amount of data that companies do not currently collect. The companies affected must prepare for this in 2023 with sufficient advance notice.

Global minimum taxation will pose significant challenges to corporate groups due to the extensive data requirements (for the individual companies/permanent establishments and countries) as well as the complex rules for determining the ETR and the special rules for transparent companies, permanent establishments, joint ventures, Partially owned Parent Entities, restructurings, M&A transactions, etc. If you want to know more about Pillar Two implementation and how our tax experts can smoothly coordinate Pillar Two projects across the globe for multinational companies, visit our dedicated page.