THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,
Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,
Having regard to Council Directive 2011/16/EU of 15 February 2011 on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation and repealing Directive 77/799/EEC, and in particular Article 20(5) thereof,
Whereas:
(1)
Directive 2011/16/EU as amended by Council Directive (EU) 2018/822 provides for mandatory automatic exchange of information on reportable cross-border arrangements. A standard form, including linguistic arrangements, should be used for those exchanges.
(2)
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/2378 should therefore be amended in order to provide for such a standard form.
(3)
The second subparagraph of Article 20(5) of Directive 2011/16/EU provides that the standard form shall not exceed the components for the exchange of information listed in Article 8ab(14) of Directive 2011/16/EU, and such other related fields which are linked to these components and are necessary to achieve the objectives of Article 8ab of that Directive. In order to ensure that the mandatory automatic exchange of information on reportable cross-border arrangements is effective, especially where more than one intermediary or relevant taxpayer is liable to file information, it is critical to include an additional field containing a reference number of the reportable cross-border arrangement. If more than one intermediary or relevant taxpayer is obliged to file information, one single reference number should feature on all exchanges of the same arrangement so that these exchanges can be linked to a single arrangement on the central directory.
(4)
For reasons of coherence and legal certainty, the date of application of this Regulation should be aligned with the date of application provided for in the second subparagraph of Article 2(1) of Directive (EU) 2018/822.
(5)
The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Committee on administrative cooperation for taxation,
HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: